


The Divine Libertines

by lesmisloony



Category: Mozart l'Opéra Rock - Mozart/Baguian & Guirao
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-11
Updated: 2017-06-21
Packaged: 2018-02-20 19:33:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 20
Words: 105,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2440352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesmisloony/pseuds/lesmisloony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Antonio's life was pretty dull until he met Constance, a charming bartender at a karaoke bar in midtown.  When her overbearing mother forces them apart, Constance's new boyfriend, who happens to be the lead singer of Antonio's favorite band, takes matters into his own hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Antonio had known from the beginning that the night would turn out like this.

He was usually able to make an excuse when Rosenberg in accounting announced an after-hours get-together, but this time it was Joe's birthday, and you can't just refuse an invitation to the CEO's party - even if that party is being held at a seedy karaoke bar in midtown. Not that he hadn't tried: he and Lorenzo, the only other Italian in marketing, had made a pact to sabotage the outing as a last result, but Lorenzo had suddenly bailed when he found out that Stephanie from sales was coming. Of course. The two of them had spent the evening passing one of the microphones back and forth and blushing at each other, which would have been sweet if it had not been so thoroughly repugnant. Antonio had mercifully gotten the spot nearest the door and busied himself busing the drink orders from the bar until their party's time was up in the private karaoke room. While Rosenberg was laboriously calculating how much each person needed to contribute to pay the rental fee, Antonio had found a free table in the corner of the bar and dropped irritably into the chair. They would come get him when they knew how much cash they needed.

Antonio was fiddling with his phone, flipping through the pointless apps that would drain the rest of his battery if he indulged in them, wondering whether or not he should get another drink, when he heard the familiar crash of a server dropping a glass and the inevitable drunken applause that followed. He looked up to throw a dark glare at whoever had cheered the poor server's misfortune. Antonio, like everybody else who had once dreamed of being a musician, had had one failed stint waiting tables, and he remembered how embarrassing it was to be the person who had just broken a dish in front of everyone.

He saw the top of the unhappy server's head behind the bar: a messy knot of yellow hair bobbing up and down as she tried to collect the shards of broken glass. Still the customers crowded along the bar, calling new orders out to her as though their sobriety was the most pressing thing in the noisy room. Antonio grimaced. He had been getting drinks for the office party all night from that little bartender and she barely looked old enough to drink, much less handle a busy night like this on her own. Was she the only employee here?

He glanced over at his coworkers, who were still gathered around Rosenberg with intense looks of concentration on their faces. Stephanie from sales had even pulled up a calculator on her phone!

The door to the kitchen swung open. "Oh, Sophie! Careful, don't cut yourself! I'll grab the broom."

Another server had emerged from the kitchen - the first one's sister, by the look of it. Antonio looked around the little karaoke bar again with a renewed interest. Was it family-run?

The decorations hung haphazardly along the dark walls didn't seem to be able to commit to a theme: here was a rusty "Home Sweet Home" sign, on the back wall was a cheap print of the New York skyline, and, closer to his head, an autographed caricature of Hollywood's favorite new heartbreaker Aloysia. He rolled his eyes. Pop music wasn't usually his thing, but there was no way to escape knowing the entire refrain of "Syncopated Heart". After tonight, the annoyingly catchy song would also come with memories of that soppy look on Lorenzo's face while he and Stephanie from sales tried to harmonize on the chorus.

What had pop sensation Aloysia been doing at a run-down karaoke bar in midtown Manhattan?

"Tony! Have you put in your fourteen dollars yet?"

He groaned, flipping through what little cash he tended to carry in his wallet. So they had finally worked out how to split the tab, and had decided on the most annoying amount possible. Of course they had. Antonio gave up his table and went back to his colleagues, adding a ten and a five to the pile of cash in Rosenberg's hand.

"Fifteen from Tony, so he needs a one. Does anyone have change for a five?"

"Keep it," Antonio instructed. "Put it toward the tip."

"But we already calculated a twenty percent tip," objected Stephanie, pointing to the calculator on her phone.

Antonio just stared at her.

It was Lorenzo who stepped in, the traitor, muttering something about the service not being that great anyway and offering to walk Stephanie to the subway. As the rest of the party began to disband, a particularly-tipsy Joe being bodily supported by Rosenberg, Antonio decided he could do with another drink after all. At that point he would have done anything to avoid sharing a train home with Lorenzo and Stephanie. He slid into an open seat at the bar.

The younger sister who had broken the glass a few moments ago had been sent back to the kitchen (though it was frankly that time of night when no one was ordering food anymore) and the older one had taken her place, taking orders and flashing sweet smiles at the rowdy customers with a professionalism that Antonio kind of envied. He had worked in a cheap steakhouse when he was in school, but even dealing with old couples' soda refills had been too stressful for him. He had never cultivated the ability to bury his indignation and force a smile onto his face: the best he could do was the blank stare he had given Stephanie from sales half an hour ago. He shot a rueful glance at the framed caricature of Aloysia. Maybe if he had been born an extrovert there would be sleazy karaoke bars in Manhattan with his picture on the walls. Would his teenage self have been more appalled at a future where Antonio was a pop sensation in eyeliner and tight pants, or to see him working a nine-to-five marketing job at an advertising firm?

"You gonna order something, or just take up that seat all night?"

Between the intoxicated patrons and the relentless karaoke machine on the far wall, Antonio almost didn't realize that the bartender was speaking to him. It wasn't until she laughed that he noticed that she was staring at him.

"What?"

The bartender just grinned shook her head, mixing some godawful-looking cocktail for a woman who was making a valiant effort to perform a Divine Libertines song while the other patrons cheered. Antonio belatedly realized that the bartender had been trying to take his order, and squinted up at the drink menu on the back wall.

What on earth was a "Bend Over Shirley"?

His thoughts must have been written in his expression, for after a moment the bartender slid a wine menu under his hand with another of her bright smiles.

Antonio tugged at his tie, suddenly warm - and then he realized he was blushing. "Thank you," he muttered, though the bartender certainly didn't hear him over all the noise.

"Not much of a drinker, are you?" she teased. "Were you with that office party in the back room?"

"How can you tell?"

The bartender pointed to her own bare neck. "There's no dress code here, you know."

Self-conscious, Antonio loosened his tie even further.

"Syncopated Heart" started up on the karaoke machine for the third time that night; Antonio's groan was buried beneath the drunken cheers of the other patrons. The bartender caught his expression out of the corner of her eye and shot him her infectious smile. "You don't like Aloysia?" she asked.

Antonio shrugged, thinking of the autographed caricature on the wall. "I don't think I'm the right demographic."

The bartender laughed out loud at this, and Antonio felt the corners of his mouth twitch at the sound of it. He trained his attention back on the wine list with renewed determination.

To his surprise, the bartender placed a shot glass in front of him. "To help you get through the first refrain," she said, offering him a slice of lime on a plate.

Antonio stared at the drink she had left behind. Would it be more embarrassing to admit to the charming bartender that he'd never done a shot before, or to use his phone to look up why she had given him a piece of lime? He regretfully laid down the wine menu and ran a finger along the rim of the shot glass.

Though he had managed to develop a love of wine, Antonio was not the sort of person to loiter in bars in the evenings. When he wasn't at work, he tended to be at home in his crappy Jersey loft, his guitar on his lap and some awful reality show droning on the television to keep him company while he attempted to compose. Until Rosenberg was hired and started planning these ridiculous company outings, Antonio had never even been inside a bar. The only thing he hated more than a room full of strangers was a dark, noisy room full of strangers.

He was starting to wish he had left when everybody else had.

No one else in the bar had a shot of - which had she said it was? Tequila? - and a random slice of fruit in front of them. Desperation rising, he finally took out his phone and pulled up the browser, drumming his fingers nervously on the table while the search page loaded. It was times like these that Antonio cursed his straight-laced youth. Everyone handled foster care differently; for Antonio, he had enjoyed being the good boy that the adults trusted to finish all his homework and rat out the other kids for breaking the rules. While the other people his age were out learning what a slice of lime had to do with a shot of alcohol, Antonio had been home reading dusty old books.

The instructions on yahoo answers seemed ridiculous. Antonio read them twice, hoping that he didn't look as incredulous as he felt. He had to lick his hand? In public?

While the bartender wasn't looking, Antonio took a deep breath and swallowed the shot of tequila as though he was drinking medicine.

God, it was awful! It burned a path through his lungs like some unholy combination of acid and poison. Antonio bit off a chunk of the slice of lime, but it didn't help as much as the kids on Yahoo Answers seemed to think it would. To his chagrin, the bartender caught his eye before he had figured out how to work the sour expression off his face. She laughed. "Tequila isn't your drink, huh?"

Unsure how to answer, Antonio cleared his throat. "How much do I owe?"

"That was on the house," she said.

"No, surely I can offer-"

"On the house! We don't get that many Wall Street types in here."

"In that case, I'll have another drink." Antonio squinted up at the menu on the back wall, scanning the prices until he found one that seemed absurdly high. "French Connection, please."

He saw the bartender's brows lift, but she simply said, "Coming up!" and cleared away his lime rind and empty shot glass.

The second drink seemed even more toxic than the first, compounded by the fact that it came in a full-sized glass tumbler rather than a tiny shot. He nursed the drink for a while, concentrating on keeping the cringe off his face with each sip - and whenever a new song started up on the machine and the other patrons scrambled for a microphone. He felt the bartender's presence in the room like an anchor; it seemed like he had a fix on her no matter where she went or who she was talking to. She kept catching his eye and grinning, or, as the night wore on, winking. It was starting to get embarrassing.

By the time his glass was finally empty, he noticed he was gripping the edge of the bar to stay upright. It was much easier to slump against the wall at his side, watching the patrons who hadn't left yet sing through lowering lids.

"You finished with this?"

Antonio peered at the bartender through the murky room. She looked more like a golden haze than a person as she took the empty glass away.

The karaoke machine was just an incomprehensible roar at that point. Antonio mussed a hand through his hair and rubbed at his eyes. How much longer until he could go to bed?

Then he sat up so quickly he almost toppled off the barstool. He was still in midtown! He still needed to get all the way back to his loft in Jersey before he could sleep!

What time was it? Had he missed the last PATH train? Antonio fumbled with his phone, but every time he tried to enter the unlock code the stupid thing gave him an error message. After several tries, he finally flagged down the bartender and passed it to her, trying his best to explain his situation. She laughed and said something back, but her voice was like an indiscernible song. Antonio leaned forward, trying to make out the words she was saying, but the bar beneath his hands lurched and he almost lost his balance.

Everything was getting dimmer, drowned out by Antonio's thoughts. Or, not thoughts exactly: his feelings, his- the essence of his thoughts were like static, filling up his head. He was so angry at Lorenzo for ditching him, at Stephanie for catching Lorenzo's eye when she transitioned, at fucking Rosenberg in accounting for planning a party at a karaoke bar and forcing him to come along. He leaned his head against the wall, too sluggish to scowl anymore. Did he have enough cash for another drink? He tried to check, but he couldn't figure out how to get his hand into his pocket. Antonio sighed, flopping forward onto the bar and dropping his head into his arms.

As Antonio regained consciousness, he slowly became aware that he was lying on his back. His throat was dry and he felt like his skull was being squeezed. So he had managed to catch the last PATH train to Jersey after all!

Antonio started to sit up, but he heard a footstep and a whispering voice. A woman's voice. Antonio froze, even holding his breath, but he couldn't focus on the stranger's words. His throbbing pulse was too loud, and now he could feel the room tilting back and forth.

A second voice spoke, slightly louder than the first, but all he heard was the phrase "some drunk she brought home" before he lost consciousness again.


	2. Chapter 2

The second time Antonio awoke, he still had no idea where he was. Without opening his eyes he could see the red glow from a sunny window, and could feel that whatever he was lying on was much softer than the air mattress in his loft back home. He wiggled his toes, confirming that his shoes were missing. What on earth had happened after he finished that drink?

Just as Antonio was working up the nerve to peer out into the room through his lashes, he heard a door open and a set of footsteps creep into the room. He clamped his eyes shut again, holding his breath.

"Well?" a woman hissed, "Who is he?"

"A customer," said a second voice - this one Antonio thought he recognized.

"And you brought him upstairs?"

"Listen, he was obviously uncomfortable last night so I gave him a shot of tequila on the house. Next thing I know it's closing time and he's staggering around asking everyone if he missed the last PATH train. There was no way he was going to make it back to New Jersey in a state like that!"

Antonio fought the impulse to cringe. So he had embarrassed himself the night before in front of that sweet bartender, and she had felt so sorry for him that he had somehow ended up passed out on her couch. Incredible.

He was never going to drink anything but wine again.

"Well, you better get him out of here or you know what'll happen. You're supposed to be the good one in the family!"

"I know! I'm working on it!"

Footsteps again, and the closing of the door.

Antonio exhaled at last, covering his face with his hands. What if he just sneaked out now without encountering anyone? He would certainly never go to that particular bar again, so it's not like he would ever have to explain himself. Maybe he would avoid midtown altogether! That would be the end of it.

"Good morning, Wall Street."

Antonio froze again, but it was too late: only one of the women had left the room a moment ago.

He peered out through a crack between two fingers. There she was. The bartender from last night was leaning against a wall, her arms crossed and a knowing smile on her face. He golden hair was still disheveled from sleep and secured in a messy knot. He dragged his hands down the length of his face and groaned.

"Don't sit up too fast," she warned, but Antonio was not smart enough to listen. That throbbing headache came surging back the minute he was upright.

He had been stretched across a faded old couch in what must have been a living room, though it was an uncomfortably narrow space. Besides the couch, the only furniture in the room was an ancient-looking television was perched on top of a dresser that was missing one drawer. A wrinkled Aloysia poster was stuck to one wall with painter's tape.

"Did I get you in trouble?" Antonio rasped. He tried to clear his throat, but the noise threatened to break open his skull.

The bartender laughed, dropping into the seat beside him and patting his knee. "That right there is the bathroom," she said, pointing to a door. "There's aspirin in the cabinet mirror. Take two, or four if you're desperate. I'll have a glass of water ready when you're done, but then I'm afraid you're going to have to hit the road."

"Thank you," said Antonio meekly. He forced himself to stand and use the door she had indicated.

The bathroom was even more cramped than the living room, and was set up in such a way that you would practically have to climb over the toilet in order to use the shower. Antonio rolled his eyes at his gaunt reflection in the mirror. Not only were his shoes missing, but his tie and belt had been removed too, and his shirt was hopelessly wrinkled. His trip back to Jersey was going to look like a walk of shame. Antonio had never had to take a walk of shame before.

He splashed water on his face and combed through his hair with his fingers. The shirt was beyond hope of straightening, but at least he looked somewhat presentable from the neck up. He found the aspirin and went ahead and took four, swallowing them dry, then faced his reflection again.

He looked only slightly less terrible than he felt. It occurred to him that this would be quite a story to tell Lorenzo on Monday at work - that is, if Lorenzo was still speaking to him after last night. He hadn't been that terrible to Stephanie, had he? She had probably been too busy making eyes at Lorenzo to notice Antonio's mood, anyway. And it wasn't like they had ever actually been friends before. Lorenzo was the only person at the office that Antonio could tolerate for more than a few minutes of conversation, but things had been tense between them ever the incident at the food cart a month ago. The whole Stephanie thing wasn't helping either.

Without warning, the door to the bathroom opened. Antonio spun around, clutched the sink with one hand for balance, and found himself facing a middle-aged woman with a look of horror etched into her face. "Who the hell are you?"

"I- I'm sorry-"

But then the woman lunged at him, seizing his ear and dragging him out of the bathroom. "Girls!" she bellowed.

The living room door opened, and in filed the young blonde who had broken a glass the night before, a tall brunette, and the bartender who had been kind to him. She had a glass of water clutched in one hand and a look of chagrin on her face.

"Who-?" asked the woman who had him by the ear. She was too apoplectic to even put her question to words. "Josie?"

The brunette huffed. "Wasn't me, mom. Not this time."

"Sophie, surely you didn't-"

The tiny blonde shook her head mutely.

The mother's grip on Antonio's ear tightened, and he had to swallow back a yelp. "Constance?"

"I'm sorry, mom!"

"Ma'am, if you could just-"

"I have one rule, Constance! One rule!"

"It's not like that! I don't even know his name!"

If the strength of her grip on Antonio's ear was an indicator of the mother's mood, it was safe to say that that was not what she wanted to hear.

"Ma'am, I promise I was on my way out. If you'd release me-"

She finally did, but not before giving that poor ear a final twist. "Get him out!" the mother snapped. "Josie, you work the bar for the rest of the month. You and Sophie will split the tips. Constance will stay home."

"Sweet," the tall sister said, winking at the tiny blonde. "Thanks, Constance."

"Oh, shut up," said the bartender.

The mother leveled a finger at her. "You have three minutes. Get. Him. Out."

And with that, she ushered the other two sisters out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

The bartender - Constance - set the glass of water down on top of the television and pointed to a bundle in the corner. "That's your stuff," she muttered.

Antonio sifted through the little pile, putting his shoes, belt, and tie back on as quickly as he could with a relentless headache and a sulking woman in the corner. When he was ready, she grabbed him by one hand and dragged him out of the apartment and into a narrow staircase that smelled overwhelmingly like cigarettes.

As soon as the door was closed, to his surprise, Constance burst into a fit of giggles. "Your ear!"

Relieved, Antonio bit back a smile. Thank goodness she wasn't as embarrassed as he was. "So, your mom seems nice," he said, and that got her laughing even harder. She had an infectious laugh.

"Are you okay?" she asked at length, taking long, slow breaths to keep herself breaking into hysterics again.

"I guess. It was a strange way to start the weekend. I didn't, um, undress in front of you, did I?" he ventured. "Last night?"

"You were barely conscious by the time I got you up the stairs," said Constance. "As soon as I got you onto the couch you were passed out."

A mortifying image of the lovely bartender removing his belt while he snored drunkenly formed in Antonio's mind. "Oh, God."

Constance swatted at his arm. "Come on, before my mom comes out here to check on me. How's your head?"

"You mean the pain from all the alcohol I consumed last night, or the pain from your mother's Mike Tyson death grip?" Antonio asked, smiling to himself when he got her to laugh again.

"Listen, there's a Starbucks on the corner," she said, motioning toward the stairs. "I'll come too. You'll have to buy your own coffee, though, Wall Street."

"Let me pay for yours as well. For your kindness."

"Sounds good to me," Constance said, leading him down the dirty staircase.

 

It wasn't until Monday morning when Antonio smacked his briefcase against the sensor next to the door and the light didn't change color that he realized that his keycard had gone missing at some point during the weekend. He had to use the external phone to dial Lorenzo's desk, the only extension he knew off the top of his head besides his own, and wait by the elevators until his colleague came to open the door for him.

Thankfully Lorenzo no longer looked like a lovesick teenager when he came to the door. He was staring at Antonio with a quizzical concentration that was surprisingly off-putting.

"Thanks," Antonio said, brushing past him. "I must have lost my keycard at that karaoke bar."

Lorenzo didn't say anything, but trailed behind him as Antonio went into the kitchen to make a cup of coffee. He leaned against the fridge with his arms crossed, staring.

"Okay, what is it?" Antonio demanded.

"There was someone in your office," said Lorenzo. "A woman."

"In my office? When?"

"This morning."

Antonio grabbed his coffee and hurried around the corner to see for himself.

He had been with the agency for about a year and a half now, yet his office still looked almost exactly the way it had when he had first been hired. His name was misspelled on door, "Saller" instead of "Salieri" for some awful reason, and the only decoration was one of those plastic daisies that waves its leaves up and down in direct sunlight. Joe had gotten them for all his employees on National Boss's Day last year. Antonio had drawn a frown onto his and placed it right at the edge of his desk where it could glower motionlessly at anyone walking by on their way to the water cooler. No one ever noticed, but it amused him anyway.

There were a few new files and unopened envelopes dropped into his inbox, but other than that Antonio's office looked just like he had left it on Friday afternoon. It wasn't until he pulled his chair away from his desk that he found his keycard resting conspicuously in the seat. How could he have left it here without realizing? Antonio picked it up and was about to put it back into his wallet when he saw one of his post-it notes stuck to the back.

 _Found this between the couch cushions,_ the note said, and beneath that was a phone number with a New York area code.

"Who was she?"

Antonio started: he hadn't heard Lorenzo approach. "Who?"

Lorenzo narrowed his eyes. "The woman. Who is she? How did she get in?"

"How was your weekend?" Antonio asked, sticking the post-it to the back of his cell phone and dropping it into his briefcase. "Did you and John get home okay?"

"Are you fucking kidding me right now?" Lorenzo snapped.

"I have work to do," said Antonio, rolling his chair up to his desk.

Lorenzo spun on his heel and stormed away.

About a half an hour later, Antonio's desk phone rang. "Marketing," he said blandly as he answered, "Antonio Salieri speaking." If customer service had sent him another telemarketer he was going to march right down there himself and chuck his desk phone at someone's head.

"So that really is your name," said a familiar voice. "I thought you had made something up to throw me off your scent."

A grin spread across his face. Constance. "And who is this, please?"

"The president of Italy," she said. "Your country needs you."

"I'm afraid I have a very important job on Wall Street to deal with."

"You don't even work on Wall Street and you know it! You're on Varick! I've never been so disillusioned in my life! What will my mother say when I tell her?"

"Probably 'get him out'," said Antonio. "Make sure you're not without pinching distance when you tell her."

"Hey, I gave you my number so you would call it," Constance said.

"Well I didn't give you my number at all!"

"I know. I took one of your business cards off your desk."

Antonio leaned back in his chair. "You're stalking me," he teased.

"Yep. Want to meet for lunch?"

"Sure."

"Your treat," she said. "You still owe me a night's worth of couch rent and two weeks' worth of tips from the bar."

"I'll make it up to you," Antonio promised.

"You might have to buy me lunch every day this week."

"If that's what it takes."

"It's a start. See you at noon."

Antonio returned the phone to its cradle, unable to force the smile off his face. For once, he wasn't even sure he wanted to.


	3. Chapter 3

"We got you a card," Lorenzo said, lurking just in front of the door to Antonio's office. It was the first time he had spoken to him in months.

Without getting up from his desk, Antonio put out a hand. "We?"

"Stephanie bought it." There was acid in his voice.

"Look," said Antonio, "I said I was sorry about the 'John' thing. It isn't her fault I was in a bad mood that morning. I was wrong." He wiggled his fingers. "Give me the stupid card."

"Don't misgender her again."

"I told you I won't," he insisted, "give me the card!"

Lorenzo finally entered the office, thrusting the neon envelope into Antonio's hand. He continued to hover while Antonio peeled it open and scanned over the courteous birthday messages from colleagues with whom he had barely ever spoken.

"I really am sorry," Antonio said again, looking up from the card. "I was being a dick. I should have been glad you were happy."

"I was happy," muttered Lorenzo, tapping one of the plastic daisy's petals and watching it wobble back and forth.

"You aren't now?"

Lorenzo tapped the daisy again. "She's getting transferred to Philly."

"Permanently?"

"It's a promotion. Head of Sales in the Eastern Corridor. They're giving her a corner office."

Antonio lowered his eyes to his card until he found Stephanie's curly penmanship. "I'm sorry, Lorenzo."

"Yeah," he said, but he swept out of the office without looking back.

When he was alone again, Antonio read over the messages on the card (none of them were particularly original) and set it up on his desk next to the scowling daisy. If Stephanie or anyone who had signed it walked by, he knew they would want to think he was grateful for the effort. Antonio checked his work email - nothing new - and then pulled up his browser.

He still felt like a sellout whenever he logged into facebook, but Constance had insisted he get one until he ran out of reasons not to. Privacy? Anonymity? None of that meant anything to Constance, who had even gone so far as to say that she didn't think of someone as a friend until she could send them a friend request. He had given in and started the page a month ago, and had only managed to accumulate about twelve friends including Constance: he had also been discovered by a few old classmates, two foster siblings, and a handful of people in the office, among which was Rosenberg in accounting.

The annoying red flag in the corner told him that a good number of those people had written on his wall with birthday wishes, and that Constance had tagged him in yet another selfie. He went to her Mobile Uploads album, which was mainly photos of her making silly faces with her sisters (and, more recently, next to him). The new picture had been taken half an hour ago during lunch after she had kissed him on the cheek and insisted on snapping a picture with the lipstick mark. The Antonio in the picture was making a concentrated effort to glower, and the Constance was pretending to look scandalized by the pink smudge just next to his beard. He saved it to the Constance folder on his desktop and untagged himself, like he always did.

Lunch with Constance had started out as a way to atone for getting her in trouble with her mother the day they met, but after a few weeks it seemed so natural that Antonio couldn't imagine his routine without it. He hadn't bothered to make that many friends when he moved to New York: after being shuffled around through the foster system as a kid, forming connections with people with whom he might one day lose contact had become unappealing. He had moved to the city with no expectation of making it in the music business, yet he was not sure how long he wanted to stick around now that he was marketing adviser. It had just seemed easiest to keep to himself and wait until he was in a more permanent situation before he started trying to make social connections.

But Constance was different. She was sunny and persistent, with a wicked sense of humor. Antonio had honestly expected her to be fed up with him after the first week, but she was always waiting on the corner when he stepped out for lunch. She was optimistic without being annoyingly so, and cheerful in a way that made Antonio want to smile along with her. She teased him relentlessly, but never in a way that made him feel bullied. She was unlike anyone he had ever kept company with before. He felt like the nerd in an after-school special who couldn't believe that the prom queen wanted to be his friend.

He unlocked his phone and pulled her name from his recent contacts, pretending not to notice that it was the only name on the list. "You get home okay?" he typed.

Her reply came almost instantly: a picture of Constance sitting on the subway, her lower lip out in an exaggerated pout. He loved it when she answered his questions with facial expressions.

"See you tomorrow," he texted back. "Tell your mom I said hi."

That would make her laugh. Constance's mother didn't know who it was her daughter met for lunch every day, and since she didn't have a facebook she was the only member of the family who never saw the contents of the Mobile Uploads album. It was strange to imagine that someone as warm and friendly as Constance could have come from such an over-protective environment. Still, he knew that her father had died suddenly a few years ago, and that her mother had changed since then. She was probably just trying to protect what family she had left. In truth, their relationship made Antonio a little jealous. No one had ever been there to scold him for coming in late, or to threaten the people he had dated.

"Antonio!"

He looked up and blanched: the CEO was standing in the door of his office. He minimized facebook on his computer and dropped his phone into his lap. "Joe!"

"I hear it's your birthday!"

"Yes sir."

"Happy birthday!"

Antonio nodded. "Thanks." Joe was a pretty eccentric guy, but had he really just come all the way down to Antonio's office just to wish him a happy birthday? How had he even known? "Sir?"

"Oh, right! Yes, so I wanted to talk to you about the new deal Stephanie just brought in. Huge company, big account, and they need an expert touch, if you know what I mean. I know you don't work in sales, but Stephanie is moving over to the Philadelphia office next week, and we really need to keep this account no matter what it takes. They want a commercial from us! Something young people would like, something edgy. Now, our Stephanie has called in the lead singer of some rock band that a lot of kids are supposed be talking about. She has Lorenzo taking over the account until we assign it to someone else. Would you mind keeping an eye on him? I just don't want to throw too much at him at once."

"Sure, Joe. I can handle it." As if he could turn down a favor for the CEO of the company.

"Wonderful! I knew you would! Since you're being such a team player, I've got news I can share: our Rosenberg is planning a birthday party for you down at that same karaoke bar. Do you want me to tell him to call it off? Lorenzo mentioned that you're not really into bars and partying."

Antonio had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. "Nah, I'll go. When's the reservation?"

"Friday! I know it's not your exact birthday, but it makes more sense for our schedules. Plus we can combine it with a going-away party for Stephanie."

"Friday is great," Antonio said. "I'll be there."

 

It was hard not to tell Constance that he would be in her bar again, but Antonio managed to keep the secret for the rest of the week. She was fortunately distracted: in preparation for a long trip, her mother had been turning the apartment upside-down packing her bags, and Constance was so busy complaining about the mess over their next few lunches that she didn't notice Antonio's smugness. For someone who didn't talk that much, he had always been surprisingly bad at keeping secrets.

By the time he clocked out on Friday afternoon, he had thought through how the night would go a thousand times. In his favorite scenario, Constance spotted him from behind the bar and broke out into that contagious smile, which made the patrons all turn around to see who she could possibly be so interested in. He liked to imagine that the patrons would be attracted to her, and that upon seeing her attention on Antonio they would mutter jealously to each other. Constance would say something witty, Antonio would come up with a flippant response on the spot, and he would spend the rest of the night slipping her generous tips and exchanging private smiles as he brought orders back and forth from the private room.

He was strangely nervous as they approached the bar that night. He tried to remind himself that Constance was obviously going to acknowledge him, and the sudden dread he was feeling was completely baseless. It wasn't as though she was going to pretend she had no idea who he was just because she was at work. She had been giving him special attention since the day they met. They had had had lunch together at the pizza place on the corner only a few hours ago. They texted back and forth several times a day, and she was constantly kicking his ass at Words with Friends. She was going to be pleased to see him. It was going to make her smile. At least, he hoped it would.

His stomach was actually churning by the time Rosenberg pulled the door open. He filed into the restaurant behind Lorenzo, and his eyes immediately went to the bar. It was still early, so there were only a couple of people seated on the stools.

Antonio's heart dropped: the tall brunette sister, Josie, was taking drink orders. Constance was either in the kitchen or upstairs in the room she and Sophie shared.

The walk to the back room was longer than he remembered, and the noise of the karaoke bar seemed like a roar. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. He stood mutely by the door while his colleagues arranged themselves on the long couch, fussing over the microphones and setting up a playlist on the machine. No one was even glancing up at him: the group seemed a lot more interested in bidding farewell to Stephanie than celebrating Antonio's birthday.

"Who wants a drink?" Antonio blurted.

Rosenberg tried to protest with "We just got here", but fortunately Joe overrode him with a bawdy cry of "First round's on me!" Suddenly everyone was clamoring to give their order to Antonio; he almost didn't remember them all.

When he approached the bar with his order, he thought he saw Josie squint a little, as though she was trying to place him. Would she be more likely to recognize him as the man her mother had dragged out of their bathroom by the ear three months ago, or the guy Constance kept posing with in her facebook pictures? He recited the list of drink orders and was met with a casual, "You in the back room?" Nothing else. If she had identified him as a friend of Constance's, she wasn't going to say anything about it. Antonio huffed. Had he gotten himself stuck at another insufferable office party for nothing? He swallowed a groan, remembering how miserable he had been last time before Constance had taken Sophie's place a the bar. He really hadn't thought this whole plan through.

Antonio resigned himself to hovering by the door of the private room just as he had done the last time, nursing the glass of wine Joe had paid for. The evening was just as annoying as it had been three months ago: maybe worse, for Lorenzo and Stephanie had actually started dating since then, and were struggling with how much affection they were allowed to display in front of their colleagues. The more they drank, the weaker their restraint was. Antonio excused himself to the bathroom just to spare himself the sight of the two of them singing an 80s love ballad into the same microphone.

He leaned against the bathroom door, grateful to be separated from the relentless hubbub of the karaoke machines. The bathroom was dim and cramped, but at least it was clean. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and felt a weird jolt in his stomach when he noticed a new text from Constance.

"Having a good night?"

Antonio started to answer, but then he had an idea. He went back into the private room and, while the songs on the playlist were changing, grabbed one of the microphones. He held it up by his face and snapped a picture of himself with his phone, making sure that the background was recognizable enough before he sent the image as a response.

As he was putting his phone away he noticed Lorenzo peering at him curiously. Antonio rolled his eyes and dropped to a seat at the edge of the long couch, passing the microphone off to the person next to him lest he be forced to sing with the next song that came up on the screen. What would Constance think of him being at her bar again? Would she come down? He hoped she wasn't stuck in the kitchen for the rest of the night. Maybe he could hang around after the party disbanded and talk to her. Maybe she would get Josie to switch with her so they could chat across the bar.

Antonio pretended to study a drinks menu while the Joe monopolized the microphone for a repetitive 90s boyband song he had selected. The others were cheering and taking video with their phones, and he was thriving on the attention. Antonio had to admit that it was a pretty funny sight: Joe was the CEO of their entire company, and he knew every word to this trashy pop song without even glancing at the screen. He was even doing a few awkward dance moves! By the time the song had ended, there was a thin film of sweat on Joe's brow and the rest of the group was in hysterics.

"Next round is on me, too!" Joe proclaimed. This was met with a roar from the party.

The cheers grew even louder when the next song started up on the machine: it was Syncopated Heart, that Aloysia song that was always on the radio. Antonio groaned and threw himself back onto the couch while the others scrambled for the microphones.

"What, you're not going to sing with me?" asked a familiar voice.

Antonio sat up so quickly that his forehead almost collided with hers. "Constance!"

She was leaning over him, one of the microphones in hand. Her long hair and gold dress made it seem like she was glowing in the dim room. "I know you know all the words," she teased, waving the microphone at him.

"I'd need to be a lot drunker. Too drunk to get home safely."

"Fine," said Constance, and to his surprise, she dropped to a seat in his lap. "But I'm going to sing," she said, draping an arm around his neck. "And you're going to stop pouting."

"I'm not pouting," Antonio huffed, but the song had already begun. He glanced over Constance's shoulder at his colleagues and caught Lorenzo's wide-eyed stare.

It wasn't the jealous glares of a half-dozen bar patrons, but it was still pretty satisfying. And having Constance in his lap was much better than having her on the other side of the bar.

"Am I crushing your legs? Do you want me to scoot?"

Antonio shook his head. "This is perfect."


	4. Chapter 4

"What's up with the lanky dude who won't stop staring at you?" Constance asked, her lips almost touching his ear. "Is he in love with you or what?"

"That's Lorenzo."

" _The_ Lorenzo? Food cart Lorenzo?" Constance twisted around to get a better look.

"Well don't stare back!"

"I'm not."

"If he's staring, and then you turn around and look at him, you're staring back!"

"Fine," she ceded, facing the screen again, but that wicked look was dancing in her eyes. "How come you never said he was cute?"

"I thought that was implied."

"Geez, okay, Antonioni Rigatoni only kisses conventionally cute people. Noted."

"Don't make me dump you on the floor."

"Try it," she said. "I'll take you down with me and give Food Cart Lorenzo something to stare at."

Antonio wiggled one knee, causing Constance to lurch on his lap. She gasped and tightened her grip on his shoulders.

"You jerk!" she laughed. "Hey, sit tight, I'm gonna make your coworkers love me."

"How?" Antonio asked, but she was already on her feet and out of the room.

Without Constance blocking his view, Antonio suddenly realized just how many people besides Lorenzo were shooting inquisitive glances in his direction. He couldn't really blame them. Antonio tended to picture himself as the office loner: in fact, he had apparently developed enough of a reputation as someone who hated socialization that the CEO had offered to cancel his birthday party. He probably hadn't struck any of them as the kind of person who would know someone like Constance, much less know her well enough for her to want to use him as a chair.

If Antonio was the office loner, Rosenberg was the office busybody. The minute Constance was gone, he tried to start a conversation by thrusting a microphone into Antonio's face. "Do you want to sing the next one, Tony?" he asked, as if it was somewhere within the realm of possibility that Antonio might say yes.

"No thanks."

"What about your- uh- your friend?"

"Ask her when she gets back," Antonio said.

"Hey," Rosenberg said, scooting closer, "did you hear Lorenzo is taking over one of Stephanie's accounts? He's not even in sales!"

"I heard."

"A rock band, can you imagine? What's the company coming to?"

"If it's what the customer wants," said Antonio vaguely.

"Listen-" Rosenberg began, but he was mercifully cut off when Constance returned with a huge tray of various kinds of alcohol.

"On the house!" she announced, setting the tray down on the low table, "for Antonio's birthday!"

His coworkers' cheers were so loud that Antonio almost expected the patrons out at the bar to come scold them. Constance slipped out of the stampede and returned to Antonio's side, mussing his hair with one hand. "Want some wine, birthday boy?"

"I've got to make it to the train this time."

"Well, just in case you miss it again, Mom's out of town for the week, remember? She's visiting Allie in Los Angeles. So if you have to crash on the couch, no one will try to rip off your ear in the morning. The Weber house is available for a slumber party."

"Sure, your sisters and I will paint each others' toenails and watch Lifetime all night."

"Cool! You'll have to be the one who pays for all the Chinese takeout, though. And the male strippers." Constance withdrew her hand from his hair and wrinkled her nose. "How much gel do you think you need, anyway?"

"Just enough to be an Italian stereotype," said Antonio.

"In that case, consider today a job well done." She stepped back and studied him for a moment, her head tilted to one side as she considered something.

"What is it?" Antonio asked, smoothing his hair self-consciously.

"Josie said I should give you a birthday present upstairs. Kind of a big one."

Antonio was suddenly even more aware of Rosenberg's eyes on him - and, from across the room, Lorenzo's. The music was loud and a few other people from sales were singing a melodramatic showtune to Stephanie to bid her farewell. Had Rosenberg heard what Constance had just said? What if he had misinterpreted it? Had Antonio misinterpreted it?

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Do you have any allergies?"

He shook his head, though he had only half-heard the question.

"Okay, come on. Just tell me if it's not what you want, okay?" Constance grabbed one of his hands and pulled him to his feet. Antonio bit back a smile; her palm actually was sticky from his hair gel.

The bar outside was pretty crowded, but Constance wove expertly through the raucous patrons without releasing Antonio. From across the room, Josie shouted, "About time!" and her sister replied by sticking out her tongue.

Antonio felt his ears getting hot. When they stopped out front of the bar and Constance dropped his hand, he cleared his throat. "Where exactly are we going?"

"Upstairs," she answered vaguely, unlocking the door to the stairwell.

"Why?"

"You'll see."

The stairwell was just as small and smelly as it had been the day they met - or, rather, the day after they met, for Antonio had no memory of the first time he climbed these stairs. He followed Constance, heartbeat loud in his ears, trying not to let his imagination race more than a few seconds into the future. 'Josie said I should give you a birthday present upstairs,' she had said. 'Kind of a big one.' And now she was taking him up to an empty apartment.

How big was 'kind of' big?

No, he was being ridiculous. Antonio studied Constance as she climbed the steps ahead of him, her fingertips brushing along the greasy handrail. Even from this awkward angle, she looked more like a decoration for the top of a Christmas tree than a real person. The dim light in the stairwell kept catching her short, full skirt as she moved, sending little flecks of golden light dancing across the walls. The upper half of the dress was made to look like a black corset, and her bare shoulders were completely hidden by her long, thick hair. She was always wearing cute little dresses when he saw her for lunch, too. How could someone as bright as Constance stand to spend time with Antonio and his dark, dull suits?

And how could she climb these stairs so quickly in those pumps?

Antonio felt a little dizzy by the time Constance stopped to unlock the apartment door, but he wasn't sure whether he should attribute it to the stairs or the wine he had had earlier that evening. Maybe the wild scenarios about what would happen on the other side of that door that refused to leave his head were to blame.

"Are you ready?" she asked, opening the door, and Antonio nodded. Did you have to say something out loud for it to be an actual lie, or did a gesture count?

The living room was just as he remembered it: cramped and strangely-decorated with signed Aloysia posters. He had never remembered to ask Constance why her mom was so into campy pop music. Now didn't really seem like the time.

Constance disappeared into a back room, calling over her shoulder for him to stay where he was while she got his present ready. Antonio set his briefcase down against the wall and obeyed, tugging at the cuffs of his jacket, then at his tie. He heard Constance muttering to herself from the next room. What did she think was going to happen? He pulled his tie looser and undid a shirt button, then buttoned it up again.

He had been seeing Constance almost every day for the past three months now, and some time ago he had finally admitted to himself that she was becoming something of an obsession. He had tried to resist, to think of her as just a normal friend, but Antonio had never had many friends, and none of them had ever filled his thoughts the way Constance did. No one had ever filled his thoughts the way Constance did, in fact, barring a few celebrity crushes when he was younger. But what they had right now was perfect. The lunch dates, her carefree laughter and the way she never hesitated to link her arm through his - this was the most rewarding friendship of Antonio's life. The inappropriate thoughts that came to him late at night had no place in the real world. Antonio was not going to scare Constance away. After all, he had already ruined his friendship with Lorenzo by reading too much into it.

"Close your eyes!" The sound of her voice snapped him back into the present.

"What? Why?"

"Close them!" she called again. "And put your hands out in front of you."

"Why?" Antonio repeated, but he did as he was told. His heartbeat was so loud he was getting a headache.

"Are they closed?"

"Yes!"

"Hands out?"

"Constance, come on."

He heard her footsteps as she came out of the back room, and the shallow sound of her breathing. When she was standing just before him she paused, and then something warm and hairy dropped into his hands.

Antonio yelped and jerked backward, opening his eyes to see a yellow ball of fluff sitting on his upturned palms. Two round blue eyes blinked up at him. "What-"

"Do you want her? Please take her!"

"What-?"

"We've got to get her out of here before Mom comes home. She'd freak."

"You're giving me a cat?"

"Sure! Why not? I mean, if you have a little kitty to take care of, I won't have to worry about you moping around your apartment alone every night. So, happy birthday!"

Antonio stared at the tiny creature in his hands. It was peering down at the floor as though it might try to make a run for it. "You can't just give me a cat, Constance. I've never had a pet."

"Cats are the easiest kind! And we've got a bunch of supplies for her. You can have them."

"Can you even take cats on the PATH train?"

Constance went back into the bedroom, leaving him alone with the ball of fur. The kitten extended a tentative paw as though it was considering walking down the length of Antonio's arm, then withdrew it and returned to looking down at the distant floor.

"Constance? Come back before it jumps!"

"Pet her!" Constance replied. She came back with several plastic PetSmart bags hanging from her arms. "Here: we've got litter, food, and some toys that were on clearance. That'll take care of the first couple of weeks for you."

"I can't- Constance, I can't carry all this and the cat."

"I'll come with you," she said. "Do you want to take the bags and I'll take the kitty?"

Antonio let her scoop the little creature up, cradling it in her arms like a baby. "But can you take a cat in the subway? You can't, can you? You need a carrier."

"I'm carrying the cat, so I'm the carrier. If anyone tries to tell us off, you can beat them up for me."

"Happy birthday to me," Antonio muttered, collecting the PetSmart bags and his briefcase. This was certainly not the present he had been expecting.

He hadn't realized just how late it was until they had to run for the last PATH train of the night, Constance clutching the kitten to her chest and diving through the doors behind him just before they closed. There were only a few other people on the train, the nearest of whom shot the pair dark glares and returned to staring blankly at the floor without even noticing the uncaged animal in Constance's arms. The cat took the whole affair in stride, huddling against Constance and staring nervously at its noisy surroundings.

As for Constance, she was so busy cooing over the cat that she hardly even looked at Antonio throughout the entire ride. He had to physically tap her on the arm to get her attention when it was time to get off.

It wasn't until they were in his building and Antonio was pulling open the doors to the freight elevator that Constance seemed to notice where they were. She shot a suspicious glance at the dark cab of the elevator, taking in its unfinished walls and thin coat of rust. "Are you about to murder me, Antonioni Rigatoni?"

"We'll see how the night goes."

"Fine, but I should warn you I have pepper spray in my purse."

Antonio held the up button and the old freight elevator roared into action. "You aren't carrying a purse," he pointed out.

"What?" Constance looked down at her bare arms. "Damn! Well I hope you can sneak me through the turnstile again on the way back into the city."

"I'll get you back home, don't worry."

"Unless you murder me first in your gross elevator."

"Right."

As Antonio unlocked the door to his studio, he suddenly saw the little space with a new perspective. The apartment wasn't messy, exactly, but when he had gotten up for work that morning he had never imagined that Constance would be standing here by the end of the night. He wanted her to see him as someone who lived in a real apartment, maybe a one-bedroom with enormous windows, sterile white walls, and minimalist furniture in stark shades of black and silver. Instead, she was faced with a shabby studio that only featured a crooked bookcase, an Ikea dresser, and a mattress and box-spring stacked directly on the floor.

Constance looked around the place once, then went over and plopped the little yellow cat down in the center of the bed. "Welcome home, pretty kitty!"

"What's its name?" Antonio asked, leaving the PetSmart bags on the counter by the sink.

"It's your kitty," said Constance. "Hey, hand me one of those toys."

While she teased the little cat with a feather on the end of a stick, Antonio set up a litter box in his bathroom and filled an old takeout dish with water. "Is this enough? Do I need to get those plastic covers for my outlets?"

"It's a cat, not a baby. It doesn't have opposable thumbs to jab into an electrical outlet."

"Good," said Antonio. He stood back and watched the little cat leap back and forth on his quilt. "So what about you? There aren't any more trains tonight. Should I call you a cab?"

"Are you paying for it, Wall Street?"

"I could."

Constance trailed the feather up to the pillow and the cat prepared to pounce, wiggling its haunches threateningly. "I'll stay for a while and make sure the cat settles in, if you want. Maybe I'll wait and catch the train in the morning?"

"Okay," Antonio said, a little too quickly.

"Do you have a TV? Find us a movie or something to watch."

Antonio obeyed, flipping through the few channels he had while Constance kicked off her shoes. "I don't have a couch or anything," he said, suddenly feeling more awkward than he had all night.

"I can sit on a bed," Constance said, rolling her eyes. "I'm not a freaking queen. You've seen where I live."

"True."

"Can I ask a favor, though?"

Antonio nodded, pretending to fiddle with buttons on the remote to avoid her gaze.

"Do you have a t-shirt or something I can put on? This dress is itching me."

The question caught Antonio off-guard; he busied himself with digging through his t-shirt drawer to hide the flush he felt spreading across his cheeks. The idea of Constance wearing his shirt was bizarre enough, but if she was going to spend the night, that meant she was going to be sleeping in his bed. Constance! In his bed!

Was she going to ask for pants? Or was she going to sleep without pants? Antonio gripped the edge of the drawer for a second while he tried to regulate his breathing. Constance, in his bed without pants!

The t-shirt he found was a couple of sizes too big for him, so when she emerged from the bathroom with it on it almost looked like one of her trendy little dresses. Her legs and feet were bare.

"We match!" she said, pointing to the t-shirt Antonio had selected for his own pajamas. "So you're a closet Divine Libertines fanboy, huh?"

Antonio tugged at his shirt, frowning down at the familiar logo. "They sang on the Good Morning show a few years ago, and I was in the crowd. They kept firing t-shirt canons, but the shirts weren't going any further than the front row. I ended up with a bunch."

"You were in the front row? How long did you wait for a spot like that?"

"I don't remember," Antonio lied.

Constance dropped onto the bed at his side, pulling his arm around her shoulders and making a big show of snuggling into the pillows. "Well, take me next time, okay? I have an in with the band."

"With the Divine Libertines?"

She nodded. "The lead singer used to date my sister."

Antonio would have bolted upright if she hadn't been leaning on him so heavily. "Your sister? Which one?"

"Allie. The one out in California. It was a long time ago."

"You know the lead singer of the Divine Libertines?"

"Yeah, big deal, he dumped her in the middle of a gig. He's kind of a handful, but I'm sure all former child stars are."

Antonio just stared at her, trying to make sense of that story. Constance was in his bed, wearing his shirt, with no pants on, and she knew the lead singer of the Divine Libertines. And she had given him a cat.

"What movie did you pick?" Constance asked, nodding toward the television screen.

"Um..." Antonio recognized the actress onscreen as Kate Winslet. "It looks like Hamlet."

It was Hamlet, but it was difficult to focus on the familiar story with Constance lying next to him on his bed. She had pressed the back of her hand to his palm and laced their fingers together, keeping his arm in place around her shoulders. Her hair was so close to his face that he could smell her shampoo. During the first commercial break he pulled the quilt over their laps with the excuse that it was getting chilly; luckily, Constance didn't seem to notice the bulge in his pajama pants. Antonio hardly dared breathe after that lest he disturb her.

The kitten, meanwhile, had gotten up the courage to leap off the bed and was poking around the corners of the room, letting out faint squeaks every once in a while.

Antonio had no idea how much time had passed before Constance jolted at the sudden sound of a particularly loud commercial. She sighed and craned her neck until she could see him. "Can I fall asleep?"

"You're the guest," he said, reluctantly extricating himself so that he could turn off the light and the television.

When he returned to the bed, quickly pulling the blankets over himself again, Constance surprised him by laying her head on his shoulder and draping an arm across his chest. "Good night, birthday boy," she murmured, her eyes already closed.

He didn't say anything, but it didn't seem like he needed to. Or maybe he didn't trust himself to speak: the situation in his pants was taking up all of his concentration. He could feel her breasts pressed against his side, and with her arm laying across his torso like that, her fingers were resting just next to his waistband. If she chose to move them just another inch...

Antonio gritted his teeth. If she could see his thoughts right now, she would be disgusted. He was doing it again, ruining a perfectly good friendship by inventing tension that shouldn't have been there. _Sexual_ tension. He drew in a long, slow breath through his nose, trying to ignore the smell of her shampoo.

When people on television found themselves in situations like this, they always tried to think of a distraction. Antonio closed his eyes. So what would distract him from having a woman like Constance sprawled across him in his own bed? People on television joked about thinking of their grandparents, but Antonio didn't have any. None of his foster parents were memorably disfigured, either. Maybe he could think of people at work? Not Lorenzo, obviously, but maybe the thought of snoopy little Rosenberg could kill the mood. Then again, he really didn't want to think about Rosenberg when he had an erection for any reason at all, even as an antidote. It was too weird. This whole day had been too weird.

In the end, it was calming his racing thoughts and matching his breathing to Constance's that finally helped Antonio settle down and, miraculously, fall asleep.

Some time later, he was awakened by a sharp prodding sensation on his stomach. Antonio grunted, his eyes flying open, and was met with the innocent gaze of the ridiculous yellow cat, which was purring so loudly that it seemed to be vibrating. He scooped it into his hands and leaned over the edge of the bed, depositing it back onto the floor.

That was when he realized that Constance wasn't lying on him anymore. In the dark, he could only make out her shape from the way her light hair stood out against his bedsheets. She had rolled away and was curled up with her back to him, the sheets pulled up to her neck.

Antonio propped himself up on one arm, studying her. Had she moved away from him for any particular reason, or just rolled in her sleep? Did she want to get away from him?

Maybe it was because he was half-asleep, but the voices in Antonio's head that had been holding him at a distance all evening weren't as adamant as they had been earlier. Holding his breath, he edged closer until his chest was brushing her back, and he slowly eased one arm around her waist.

She sighed in her sleep, and Antonio actually felt his heart stop beating as he anticipated her waking and pushing him away. He froze: the voices were back now, berating him for ruining another friendship, but to his surprise Constance just rolled back ever so slightly, pressing more firmly against him.

At this angle, the side of her face was illuminated by the low light from the street, catching her hair and lashes and making them look as gold as the dress she had left folded on the counter. Now Antonio's breath caught for another reason: she was genuinely the most beautiful person he had ever known.

He groaned, dropping his head onto the pillow behind hers. It was too late for him now, wasn't it? He finally managed to find a perfect friend here in New York, and he had to go and fall in love with her.

Antonio pressed his forehead into the crook of her neck and clenched his eyes shut.

Fuck.


	5. Chapter 5

When Antonio first awoke, he thought his apartment was empty. It wasn't until he was sitting on the mattress, scrubbing both palms over his face and sighing, that he noticed the sound of his shower running. He froze, hands still spread across his face, and stared at the closed bathroom door. That was when he remembered waking up in the middle of the night and spooning Constance Weber while she was sleeping. He groaned and flopped back onto the bed, covering his face with his arms. What must she have thought when she awoke? She was probably in there trying to scour away the memory of it.

He didn't move when he heard the shower switch off, or even a moment later when Constance emerged, wrapped in one of his towels with her hair swept up in another. He closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep until he heard her go back into the bathroom and close the door. Then he pulled the blankets over his head and scowled into the darkness.

She was going to leave, wasn't she? She had managed to get out of the bed without waking him, and now she was dressing as quietly as she could. She was going to sneak out and pretend none of this had ever happened, just like Lorenzo had done. And their friendship would be over.

Antonio clenched his eyes, grinding his fists against his temples. This was why he couldn't keep friends. This was why he came straight home from work every evening and watched television until he rolled over and went to sleep. This was why the CEO of his entire company had offered to cancel his birthday party.

No. This was not going to happen again - not with Constance. Antonio was not going to lose Constance over one mistake.

Animated by a sudden burst of determination, he kicked off his blankets and went over to the fridge. There wasn't much in the way of breakfast food, but he still had half a carton of eggs from his spaghetti carbonara dinner a few nights ago. He rinsed off a frying pan and put it on the stove, smoothing his hair self-consciously with one hand and wishing he could duck into the bathroom to check his reflection in the mirror.

He already had one of the eggs cooking when the bathroom door opened again. "Morning," he said, not daring to take his eyes off the pan. Had he sounded casual enough?

"Hey," muttered Constance, and Antonio's heart dropped. She didn't sound angry, not exactly, but her voice was flat and unenthusiastic. Maybe Constance wasn't a morning person - or maybe their friendship was over.

"Do you want an egg?" he asked, forcing his own voice to remain level. His heart was pounding again. It was too early to deal with all of this, especially after a stressful night spent batting away his perverse thoughts while Constance slept innocently by his side.

She didn't answer right away. Antonio finally gathered the courage to turn his head: the kitten was flipped onto its back on the bed, and Constance was tapping it on the nose, withdrawing each time just before it could catch her arm in its extended claws.

"Constance?"

She grabbed the kitten's stomach and it wrapped its front paws around her wrist in a vicious hug.

"No! Don't let it bite you!"

"It's fine. She's playing."

"You'll get hurt!"

"She's _playing_ ," Constance said again, shooting him a sudden glare. "Wow, you're even worse at interpreting body language than I thought."

Though he wasn't sure exactly what she meant, her tone hit Antonio like a slap. Apparently he had been holding out hope that the tension between them was his imagination, and that Constance wasn't angry at him at all. But she had never spoken to him like that before. She had never looked at him like that before.

Antonio turned back to the stove, busying himself with dropping a piece of bread onto the pan alongside the fried egg.

Fuck.

"Okay, I'm sorry," sighed Constance. "It's my fault, not yours. I'll go." And before he could react, she had walked right out of the apartment.

"Wh- what? Constance, wait!"

It was the freight elevator that saved the day: Constance wasn't sure how to work it, and was stabbing irritably at the call buttons when Antonio followed her out of the apartment, barefoot and still in his pajamas.

"Just let me go," she grumbled, kicking the rusty elevator doors.

Antonio shook his head, planting himself between her and the call buttons. "Let me apologize first. Don't end it like this."

"I told you it's not your fault. I'm pathetic. You straight-up told me you used to be with a guy and I convinced myself you were bi or whatever just so I could keep telling myself that's where this has been going. I always do this shit."

"You always- you convinced yourself- wait, what?"

"I'm pathetic!" Constance said again. She was pacing now, wringing her hands. "Okay, there have to be stairs. Where are the stairs? I want to go."

"You're not- aren't you- aren't you mad at me?"

She stopped in the middle of the landing and finally turned to face him. "Am _I_ mad at _you_? For what?"

"For-" Antonio dropped his gaze to the floor. It sounded ridiculous when he said it aloud. "When you were asleep. I put my arm around you."

Silence.

When he looked up again, she was staring at him, her brow furrowed and her mouth open. He couldn't tell if she was baffled or amused. It was mortifying.

"What is it?"

She shook her head. "Say that again. Tell me again why I'm mad at you."

"Constance, please," he muttered. He could feel his whole face burning with embarrassment.

"You put your arm around me? Why?"

Antonio turned around, holding down the call button until the freight elevator roared to life below.

"Hey, stop it!" said Constance, pulling his arm away. The elevator fell silent. She was standing so close that he could smell his shampoo on her damp hair. "Tell me. Say it."

"Say what?"

"You thought I was mad that you put your arm around me. Why?"

He couldn't meet her eye. "It's what happened with Lorenzo."

"Antonio Salieri, you clueless prude!" she exclaimed suddenly. "Literally the only way I could have been more obvious last night is if I'd come out and begged you to kiss me! I spent the whole morning thinking you weren't into me and I had creeped you out!"

Now it was Antonio's turn to stare open-mouthed. She had said it all casually enough, even with a hint of laughter to her voice, but he must have misunderstood. Hadn't he? Or had Constance Weber really just said that she had wanted to kiss him? He closed his mouth long enough to clear his throat, hoping it would give his head time to clear as well. "What do you- what do you mean?"

"How can you think I'd be angry that you put your arm around me? If I'd had my way we'd have been doing a lot more than that last night! Forget arms, I was expecting to end the day with my legs around your waist."

That image sent all the blood rushing out of Antonio's face. He grabbed her shoulders, worried he would topple right over if he wasn't anchored by something solid. " _What_?"

"Why did you put your arm around me last night, Antonioni?" she asked again, but from the grin on her face it seemed like she was already anticipating the answer.

Antonio took a deep breath; he was pretty sure that his grip on her shoulders was the only thing keeping him upright. He trained his eyes on the wall behind her head, unwilling to see her expression when he admitted aloud the secret he had only begun to come to terms with the night before. "I think," he began, casting out for the least embarrassing way to phrase it, "you're the most perfect person I know. I could- I could love you, maybe," he stammered.

And then Constance clapped a hand to the back of his neck and kissed him on the lips. It was brief and sudden; Antonio hadn't even registered what was happening before she pulled back and smirked at him. He had just stood there. He hadn't even thought to purse his lips. "I don't need you to love me," she said. She moved more slowly when she leaned in the second time, and Antonio had the presence of mind to kiss her back.

Antonio hadn't kissed that many people in his life, but relationships that had gone this direction in the past had always gotten intense enough that he had managed to get in a lot of practice. Kissing was familiar, but kissing Constance was pleasantly different. Her tongue was against his lip almost immediately; he met it with his own, cautious at first, but Constance wasn't wasting any more time. She pressed her body to him, soft curves where he wasn't used to them, and then she dropped a hand to his waist, grinding her hips against his and twisting the other hand through his hair until Antonio saw spots behind his lids. He didn't realize how unsteady he was on his feet until his backside suddenly collided with the wall behind him. She broke away long enough to giggle and then they were kissing again. He had dared to imagine what this would be like a few times, and now that it was actually happening it was not what he would have expected. Her mouth tasted like his toothpaste, and he was acutely aware that he hadn't had a chance to brush his own teeth. She didn't seem to mind. Constance was kissing him with a fierce energy that was both flattering and intimidating. It seemed like she wanted to rip his clothes off right here on the landing. Antonio would have let her do it, too.

It was the unexpected sound of the fire alarm that finally got their attention: when Antonio gasped, "The toast!" he wasn't just breathless from surprise. But then he remembered that he was wearing nothing but a Divine Libertines t-shirt and pajama pants, that he was pinned to the wall of the landing by a fully clad woman in a gold miniskirt, and that the keys to his apartment were on the other side of a locked door.

Oh, and that his flannel pants were doing nothing to hide his erection.

"I don't have the keys," he said weakly, and for some ungodly reason that sent Constance into a fit of hysterics.

It was so obvious what they'd been doing that when the first neighbor poked their head out to see whether or not the fire alarm was indicative of a real threat, they looked Antonio up and down, apologized, and closed their door with a knowing smile. It wasn't just Antonio's pants that gave them away, either: Constance's lips were puffy and her damp hair was all mussed, and Antonio knew he was in the same state. The alarm continued to blare mercilessly overhead.

"What do I do? Do I call the super?"

Constance was still shaking with laughter, but she caught her breath long enough to point out that he didn't have his phone either. "You have to go get him!"

"But I'm barefoot!" he protested, and that set her off again. It would have been maddening if she didn't look so radiant.

A moment later the freight elevator heaved itself up to their floor with a long, mechanical groan. It had to be the super on his way up to assess the situation. Antonio tugged at the hem of his t-shirt, but he had given the bigger one to Constance the night before and his fit too well to hide his unfortunate situation. Though the sight of him trying to pull his shirt down to hide his pants had her laughing even harder than before, Constance managed to straight up long enough to plant herself at his side so that her full skirt blocked it from view, pulling his arm around her shoulder to make her proximity look more natural.

The super was a gruff, harried little man who spoke no English, communicating instead through an assortment of cognates and gestures. He stepped out of the elevator doors and frowned at the pair, then pointed at the locked door of Antonio's apartment.

"No- no fuego!" Antonio stammered, tightening his grip on Constance. "No..." he pointed at himself with his free hand and mimed turning a key in a lock.

"No llaves!" chirped Constance. She was still enjoying the whole situation a little too much, but at least her skirt was successfully hiding his erection.

That is, her skirt was hiding his erection until the super got the door unlocked and a cloud of smoke rolled out onto the landing, accompanied by a flash of yellow that Antonio realized was a very stressed kitten. Constance gasped and launched herself after the tiny beast, leaving him unfortunately exposed.

Antonio froze where he was, wishing the smoke was thick enough to obscure the super's vision. He felt like he was in the adult version of one of those dreams about being at school in his underwear. Would it be stranger if he just stood here staring, or if he completely turned his back to the super and faced the wall until he was gone? Antonio scowled at Constance, who was in the far corner gathering the horrified kitten into her arms. Traitor. It was her fault he was in this situation in the first place.

He tugged at his pajama pants again, and settled for awkwardly crossing his hands over the bulge. Maybe he would sleep in jeans from now on, just in case.

By the time the super left (and Antonio was sure he saw an unusual sparkle in the old man's eye), the situation in Antonio's pants had subsided. His apartment smelled terrible: the eggs and toast he had left on the stove were completely reduced to a molten black mound, and his frying pan was ruined. Opening the window and turning on a fan helped a little, but just being in the room made his eyes water.

"Can I use your phone?" Constance asked. The kitten was perched on her shoulder like a wobbly familiar.

Antonio passed it over, then went to work scrubbing some of the toast residue off his pan. Maybe if he soaked it in the sink for a while he could salvage it.

"Sophie? It's me," he heard Constance say. "I know, but I had to give Antonio the kitten."

There was a pause, and he wondered what her sister was saying. It wasn't a surprise that Sophie knew who he was, especially given how many pictures Constance had posted to facebook for the past few months, but it was still strange to him. That must mean that Constance talked about him to her sisters. He wondered if they knew Constance had been wanting to kiss him.

"This is his number, and it's in my phone too," she said. A pause. "Right where I left it, next to the couch! You know the lock code, right?"

Antonio realized that Constance hadn't asked for his lock code. That made sense; they spent enough time together that he was pretty sure he could replicate hers as well.

"Okay, I'll be back at the end of the weekend, probably. Monday morning?"

Monday morning! It was only Saturday! Constance wanted to spend the whole weekend at his place? The charred pan nearly slipped out of his hands and into the sink.

"Shut up! I'm not talking to you!" gasped Constance, laughter in her voice. A final pause, and then: "You're gross. But yes, that's the plan. See you then!" She came over to the sink and set the phone on the counter. "Not only did I forget my purse, but I forgot my phone as well. And everything else! Do you have condoms?"

The pan clattered into the sink, dousing Antonio in soapy water.

"Seriously?" Constance smirked. "You really are a prude! Where would they be? Underwear drawer?" She started across the room to his dresser.

"No, Constance, don't- don't do that. I don't have any. No one ever comes here."

She raised an eyebrow, depositing the kitten onto the floor. "From what I hear, your buddy from the food cart was coming all over the place in here."

Antonio physically recoiled in surprise. "I'll go get some," he muttered, wiping his soapy hands on a dish towel.

"Well don't go out if you're gonna be all grumpy about it," said Constance. "I'm not gonna force you to mess around if you don't want to. Stay and talk for a little bit."

"I do want to," Antonio said, but he couldn't even meet her eye when he admitted it. What was wrong with him? Wasn't he still the same person who had pushed Lorenzo Da Ponte against a manned food cart during lunch hour and made out with him in the middle of a crowded sidewalk?

"It doesn't have to be weird. Come here. We'll just talk." Constance pulled him away from the sink and clambered onto his bed. The kitten leaped up after her and began sniffing suspiciously at the pillows, so Antonio made a point of sitting on her other side. She linked her arm through his. "Okay?"

"Yeah," he admitted.

"Good. Hey, is that a guitar in the corner by the dresser?"

Antonio nodded.

"How come it's all closed up in a case? Do you know how to play it?"

"Yeah. My brother Frank taught me when I was little."

"You have a brother?"

Antonio shrugged. "I did. He was older than me. I used to sneak out of the dorm at night to hear his band play."

"The dorm?"

"At the children's home."

He felt Constance stiffen in surprise, but after a moment she just tightened her grip on his arm. It seemed strange that she didn't already know about his past, but then again, he tended to let her do most of the talking when they had lunch together. "So where's Frank now?"

"I don't know. That was in Jersey, but my first foster home was in Long Island and we didn't have cell phones or email addresses back then."

"They separated you?"

"I guess," said Antonio. The pity in her voice was making him nervous. "I don't play that guitar much anymore, to be honest. When I first moved here I thought I was going to busk in the subway on the weekends, but I never felt like I knew enough songs."

He felt her relax at the change of subject. "You only need like ten minutes' worth of material, though, cause people will be getting on and off and won't stand around to hear you play. Unless it's the C, in which case they make you wait like an hour between trains."

"The C train can go fuck itself," said Antonio lightly.

"Yeah!" Constance laughed.

"What about you? Is the karaoke bar training you for a career as a singer or something?"

"Ha! Yeah, right. Because one Aloysia isn't enough."

"Do you want to take over the bar someday?"

"Hell no," said Constance. "I'd like to run a business or something, though. Maybe open a little shop somewhere."

"Would you bring your sisters?"

Constance rested her head on his shoulder. "Maybe," she said. "But I want my own family too. I always imagine an apartment full of a bunch of kids with chocolate smeared all over their faces running around trying to draw on the walls."

Antonio didn't tell her that that sounded a lot like his old orphanage. He pressed his cheek against the top of her head.

"Mom says I have to marry rich, though. I used to laugh about it, but Allie married Joey Lange and they started sending Mom checks every month. Things have been so much better ever since. We haven't had a ramen dinner in years. It makes you think that maybe money can buy happiness after all."

"Wait, Joey Lange the famous actor? Isn't Allie the same sister who dated the lead singer of the Divine Libertines?"

"Yep, that's her."

"Jesus," muttered Antonio. "Is Josie dating the mayor of New York? Sophie's engaged to a Nigerian prince?"

"In Mom's dreams!"

"And yet you're spending the weekend with a marketing director from Jersey."

Constance hummed in agreement, turning her head just enough to press a kiss against his shoulder.

"I wouldn't have taken you for the romantic type," Antonio mused. He unhooked his arm from hers so that he could wrap it around her waist instead, pulling her closer to him. Constance settled her cheek against his chest, her warm breath ghosting over his throat. "I mean, I thought you were about to take me right there on the landing a minute ago."

"Damn fire alarm," she mumbled. It almost sounded like she was getting sleepy.

Antonio kissed the top of her head. Her hair was almost dry now, but it still smelled faintly of his shampoo.

"What about you?"

"What about me?" Antonio asked, wondering if she would mind if he stroked her hair.

"Do you want a bunch of kids and a Nigerian prince for a husband?"

He chuckled, caught off-guard by the question. "I don't know," he lied. "I never really thought about it."

"Well, buy some lottery cards when you go get the condoms and maybe you can be my Italian prince husband."

"Okay, but if I win the jackpot, we're naming the kids Luigi and Mario."

"And a daughter named Peach. No, wait- Waluigi!"

"Done," said Antonio, and he smiled into her hair when Constance laughed.

She heaved a great sigh and then wiggled out of his arms. "Go," she urged, pushing on his chest. "Get some breakfast that's not on fire while you're at it."

"Fine, I'm going," he groaned, clambering off of the bed. "Let me brush my teeth first."

He changed into real pants while he was in the bathroom. Constance would definitely tease him if she noticed that he was too shy to change in front of her, especially considering he was on his way to buy condoms so the two of them could have sex. Still, it hadn't happened yet, and he didn't want her first view of his bare ass to be while he was hopping on one leg struggling to get into his faded skinny jeans.

He was finally combing through his hair when he heard his cell phone ring. Antonio almost didn't recognize the sound. He didn't really use it to talk to anyone but Constance, and she usually sent texts and pictures. On the other side of the door, he heard Constance answer. It must have been one of her sisters calling.

When he left the bathroom a moment later, Antonio was fully dressed except for his shoes. But the atmosphere in the room had changed: Constance had his phone in her hand and was staring vacantly at it, a grim set to her mouth.

He instantly felt his hope sink away. Something had happened. It was over. It had all been too good to be true. "You okay?" he asked, eyeing his phone.

"Mom called Josie," said Constance. She threw the phone against the nearest pillow, which woke the kitten and sent him darting to the safety of the far corner.

"Is she alright?"

Constance pushed herself off of the bed, straightened her dress, and went to retrieve the shoes she had kicked off earlier. "She just landed at JFK."

"You have to go home?"

"Allie's with her. She's pregnant."

"Your mom?"

Constance shot him a dark look.

"Oh! Your sister's pregnant. Okay. I'm sorry."

"And Joey left her. Again!"

Antonio took a deep breath, letting go of the plans he had made for their weekend together. Constance had a family to tend to. It wasn't really something he knew that much about.

He grabbed his keys and his wallet. "I'll spot you for a cab," he said gently, hoping that he didn't sound as shattered as he felt.

Something in his voice got her attention anyway. Constance threw her arms around his neck, pulling him into a tight hug. "Rain check on our weekend, okay? Get the biggest box of condoms they sell and be ready for next time."

"I will," he said, giving in to the temptation to stroke her hair. "I'll buy a couple hundred lottery tickets while I'm at it."

"Good. I'll tell Mom I was having breakfast with my Italian Prince Charming," Constance said. Her voice was muffled against his chest. "How do you say 'charming' in Italian? Rigatoni?"

"Yeah, rigatoni."

"Prince Rigatoni," Constance said. "Lord of Wall Street."

"Owner of a million condoms."

"And a smoke-damaged frying pan."

"Your mom will be so impressed."

The whole room seemed colder when she let go of him.

Constance gripped his hand through the entire cab ride back into the city; even with the heavy traffic in the Lincoln Tunnel, it was over too soon. As for Antonio, he spent the rest of the weekend on his own, as usual, with only the kitten and the familiar drone of reality television to distract him from his silent phone.


	6. Chapter 6

When he stepped out for lunch on Monday, Antonio was genuinely surprised to see Constance waiting for him. She was wearing another short black dress, this one covered in multicolored bows, and a huge smile. The glint of the bright September sun on her long golden hair made her look more like an angel than usual. Antonio actually froze in his tracks at the sight of her.

He hadn't heard from her since Saturday morning, when she had hurriedly kissed him and climbed out of the cab without looking back. He had tried to tell himself that having a pregnant, newly-single sister in from LA had to be time-consuming, but every time he had checked his phone a part of him wondered whether it had all been some kind of scheme to get away from him. When he had gone to bed last night the cat had curled into a loudly-purring ball next to his head, and Antonio had suddenly understood the appeal of having a pet. He looked at the little golden hairball with its enormous blue eyes, and he decided its name would be Cat-stance.

Now here was the real Constance, leaning on a rusty blue mailbox and smiling at him like nothing awkward had happened between them that weekend. Antonio felt an unexpected weakness in his knees that reminded him of stage fright.

Constance showed no signs of any such qualms, of course. She bounded across the street with her purse clutched tightly beneath one arm, skittered to a stop a few paces away from him, and dropped into an overstated curtsy. "Prince Rigatoni," she said with a reverent voice.

"Um- hey."

She clapped a hand to her forehead. "Oh no! He's being a prude again!" groaned Constance. "All our progress, gone!"

"I'm not a prude!"

"You're a giant prude. The giantest!"

A few members of a nearby construction crew were resting with their backs against the equipment and watching them while they ate lunch. Antonio couldn't tell if the smirks on their faces were directed at Constance's short, strapless dress and or the things she was saying about Antonio. Either way, he didn't like it. "I'm not a prude," he said again, his voice lower. "I'm just not all-" he wiggled his hands in the air on either side of his face and tried to make his eyes as wide as Constance's.

"I don't know what that was supposed to mean, but it was adorable," said Constance. "Permission to kiss you?"

He glanced over her shoulder at the construction workers. "Granted."

It should have been a quick greeting kiss, but Constance still managed to catch his lower lip between hers and slide her tongue across it. Antonio grunted in surprise and she broke away, a smug light dancing in her eyes.

He bought them both dollar slices; she was in a pizza mood that day. They found an empty bench in the corner park on Sixth Avenue, where Constance kept trying to get pigeons to land on Antonio by balancing pieces of crust on his shoulders and lap when he wasn't paying attention. Initially he was flicking the bits of bread back at her as he found them, but one accidentally landed right in the cleft between her breasts and after that he was too embarrassed to continue. Constance found the whole thing hilarious, of course, and insisted on leaving it where it had landed. "Maybe a pigeon will feel me up," she joked.

Antonio cringed. "Throw it on the ground! People will stare."

"And does that make you jealous?" she asked sweetly.

"Jealous? No! I just-"

"You're prude-ing up again," she interrupted.

"Prude-ing?"

Constance nodded, plucking the scrap of bread out of her cleavage and tossing it onto the pavement. "That's your thing, apparently. I leave you alone for half a minute and you freeze up like the Tin Man."

"I don't freeze up," he muttered, but he knew she had a point.

"You do, and then if I want my Antonio back I have to oil you up. And not in a fun way."

"Your Antonio?"

Constance nodded again, linking her arm through his and dropping her head onto his shoulder. "Mine."

Antonio kissed the top of her head. "I'm sorry. I guess I'm rusty."

"Hilarious."

He grinned against her hair.

"Hey, I've got a surprise for you!" she said, sitting up so suddenly that her head narrowly missed cracking into his jaw. "Let me find it."

Antonio collected their paper plates and napkins and took them over to the nearby trash can, wiping the crumbs off his trousers. When he returned to the bench, Constance had produced a ticket from deep within her disorganized purse. "Happy birthday!"

"You already gave me that cat," Antonio said, taking the ticket. When he saw the name of the band, he nearly lost his grip on it. "Constance!"

"Allie got them. She used to date the frontman, remember? They're playing Madison Square Garden on Thursday, and she us got a bunch of VIP tickets! Allie said she doesn't want to see him, so she gave me her ticket to give to you!"

"And your mom won't be there?" Antonio asked, covering the ear that Cecilia Weber had nearly ripped off of his head all those months ago.

"Yeah, right, Mom in the front row of a Divine Libertines concert at Madison Square Garden."

"Constance, this is amazing. This is really amazing."

"Something told me you might appreciate it."

Antonio leaned in and kissed her. It was the first time he had initiated a kiss between them, and a part of him still worried she would pull away. She didn't, of course; in fact, the instant his lips touched hers she wound her arms around him and pulled him in tighter.

When they broke apart, Antonio didn't let go of her waist as she asked,"Can I come over again this weekend?"

"Yes, of course." He realized he was a little breathless.

"Promise you won't rust up on me?"

"I'll try."

"Good," said Constance. "And you might need to buy a second box of condoms. You know, just in case."

It was a fantastic thing to hear her say, yet Antonio had to force himself not to cringe anyway. Maybe she was right: maybe he was a prude.

 

 

Work was particularly tedious that day. Antonio caught himself staring at the clock at the corner of his desktop multiple times, as though watching the minutes tick away could make Thursday come faster. Front row and a backstage pass to the Divine Libertines at Madison Square Gardens! He had never been given anything that generous! If he ever met Constance's sister Allie, Antonio was worried he might kiss her, too.

It was late afternoon before a new email finally popped up in his inbox. Antonio had taken over Stephanie's marketing deal until the new sales rep finished training, and was corresponding with a representative for their client about the terms of the commercial jingle. He usually rolled his eyes when this customer sent a new email, since their default font color was purple and they had a long, ridiculous automatic signature that included shallow inspirational quotes and far too many tildes as decoration. This time, he was actually bored enough with his lack of work that the incoming message was a relief.

He browsed the email and dropped his head to his desk in frustration. The signature was actually longer than the message, which simply read: "Busy all week, good for meeting w/ u next monday! THEO".

Who used 'u' for 'you' in a professional email?

"Antonio?"

He jerked his head up. Lorenzo was hovering awkwardly at the door of his office, his arms crossed tightly around a stack of folders.

"Hey."

"Are you working on that commercial?" he asked. He wasn't quite making eye contact.

Antonio pointed to the chair in front of his desk. "Come sit."

To his relief, Lorenzo did, crossing his long legs and resting the folder in his lap. He stared at the desk with his wide brown eyes, but didn't repeat the question or pose a follow-up.

"How've you been?" Antonio asked, taking care to keep his tone as businesslike as possible.

Lorenzo didn't answer right away. Antonio was sitting with his hands poised over his keyboard: at the first sign of awkwardness he was ready to say he had just received an important new case. He pretended to scan something on his screen, though the only unanswered email he had was from the inappropriately slangy Theo.

He had reread the insipid message at least four times before Lorenzo finally answered what should have been a simple, cursory question with, "I don't know."

Antonio looked up from his computer, biting the insides of his cheeks to hide his impatience. He had known Lorenzo for years. He had coached him through every kind of breakup there was despite his lack of personal experience in the area. Between the two of them, Lorenzo had always been the troublemaker and Antonio had always followed behind to clean up his messes. Things had been so off lately. One weekend of rebound sex and suddenly Lorenzo was acting like a complete stranger.

But it wasn't just what had happened between them that had changed Lorenzo, Antonio thought. He opened and closed the email from his insipid client again.

"It's just... We were different," Lorenzo went on. Now he was staring off into the distance.

Antonio dropped the email into the trash folder, then took it out again. Of course that's what this was about. Stephanie. Today was her first day working from the Philadelphia office.

"It's like it was always supposed to be her," Lorenzo was saying. "It's... I remember how things were before I knew her, and I remember how normal everything felt. But then I found her, and suddenly she was all I ever thought about. I remember life before her, but at the same time, I can't imagine it."

Antonio stiffened. That sounded a little too familiar. He minimized his email inbox and shot a guilty glance at his desktop background: a picture Constance had put on facebook of the two of them waiting in line for a cronut. Her idea, of course. The hour they had waited to get the thing would have been a waste of time with anyone else.

After a moment, Lorenzo snapped out of his thoughts and turned his wide-eyed stare on Antonio. "I'm sorry. You're the last person who needs to hear this shit from me. It's just- I don't know who else-"

"It's fine. Really," Antonio reassured him, and he actually heard an echo of sincerity in his own words. How long had it been since he had been able to look at his former friend without his stomach doing that angry little flip he was so used to?

Lorenzo turned over the folder in his lap, then turned it again. "It's not fine," he blurted. "I'm sorry, Antonio, really. I've been such a dick. You're the one who got me this job in the first place. I should have at least-"

"It's fine, Lorenzo," he said again. "I get it. Seriously: I get it."

"Really?" He studied him for a moment. "You mean-?"

Antonio saw the subtle lift of Lorenzo's brows when he understood, and he shrugged, suddenly aware that his cheeks were burning a little. "I get it," he said again.

"Is it the blonde who met you at the karaoke bar Friday night?"

"Constance," said Antonio.

For the first time in months, that slow, lazy smile spread across Lorenzo's face. "Constance, huh?"

Antonio nodded, biting the insides of his cheeks again, but this time it was to contain his own answering grin.

"We have girlfriends," said Lorenzo, wrinkling his nose.

"We're like the guys who used to make fun of us in school."

"Girlfriends," Lorenzo repeated, pronouncing the word as though he were learning a foreign language. "How did you meet yours?"

They had barely spoken at all since Joe's birthday. Antonio started telling the story of his adventures after their first trip to the karaoke bar with a little reservation, but Lorenzo was just as good a listener as he had always been. Soon Antonio found himself dwelling on the particularly funny details for effect: his own confusion over his first shot of tequila, waking up in an unfamiliar living room, and, of course, his introduction to Cecilia Weber. By the end of the story, Lorenzo was laughing so loudly that Rosenberg from accounting stared pointedly into the office as he passed. It was like they had never been estranged.

Between this, the ticket in his briefcase, and the memory of Constance calling him 'my Antonio', he ended the day feeling like everything was finally falling back into place.

 

 

Antonio had just finished a huge takeout dinner and was scowling at a Friends rerun when his phone vibrated. He had to adjust the kitten, who had fallen asleep just by his armpit, to retrieve the phone from his bedside table, but it was worth it when he saw that the message was from Constance. Not that anyone else would have texted him this late at night anyway.

When he pulled up the message and the picture loaded he started so violently that the kitten evacuated the bed and Antonio accidentally dropped the phone against his own cheek. The pain didn't matter; he sat up and looked at the image again.

It was Constance. It was unquestionably Constance, though only a sliver of her chin was visible. The rest of the picture was a pair of bare breasts shielded only by one arm, a stomach that appeared to be mostly submerged in a bath, and two naked thighs pressed tightly together at the knee. He could even make out a tuft of dark gold hair at the apex of those thighs.

It was a nude. Constance Weber had just sent him a nude.

He enlarged the picture, zooming in and slowly panning down its length. This felt like some kind of invasion, he told himself, but it was Constance who had chosen to take and send the picture.

What would it be like to run his hands up the length of those thighs?

Yep, there it was: his jeans were starting to feel a little too snug. Checking to make sure the cat was out of sight, Antonio unzipped his fly and gently rubbed his palm across the front of his boxers.

The sound of a jeering studio audience startled him: Phoebe had just kissed whoever her guest star boyfriend was. Antonio sat up long enough to grab the remote and mute the television, then kicked his jeans off the rest of the way.

He jumped again when his phone started to vibrate in his hand. This time it was an incoming call. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that it was from Constance herself.

"Hey."

"Hey, Antonioni. Did you get it?"

No preamble then. Well, that was probably for the best, since Antonio had already taken off his pants. "Yeah."

"And?"

"Did you just take that?"

"Yep. Just for you."

"You're taking a bath?"

"I take my privacy where I can get it. Mom's having dinner with Allie, and Sophie and Josie are down at the bar, so I've got the place to myself."

"You shouldn't have your phone in the bath, Constance," Antonio said. He realized he had started palming the bulge in his underwear again and froze guiltily.

"It's for a good cause," she said. There was a pause during which Antonio was pretty sure he could hear the slosh of bath water. "So? What would you do if you were here with me right now?"

Oh. So it was going to be that kind of a phone call. Antonio immediately felt his mouth go dry. "I would tell you not to have your phone in the bath," he muttered. Somehow there was enough blood left in the top half of his body for his cheeks to start burning.

"Thanks, Rusty the Tin Man."

"Constance!" he protested. "This isn't exactly my forte."

"Well, are you touching yourself?"

Antonio took a slow, deep breath, but it still didn't steady his nerves. "Yes," he admitted.

"Me too."

Another twitch beneath his palm. Antonio was getting a little dizzy.

"I wish it was your hand instead," Constance said, keeping her voice low. "Your mouth. I want to feel your beard against my thighs. Your hot breath. Your tongue."

Antonio's breath hitched. "Jesus, Constance."

"Mm. Your lips here, my boobs, while you slowly slide your cock into me. All the way."

"Fuck," he breathed.

Constance laughed, but it was a lot throatier than the giggle he was used to. "You're easy. Now you go."

"Go where?"

"Talk!" she ordered.

"I- I don't-" Antonio stammered, but he stopped himself and heaved a sigh. Judging from the way Constance was breathing and based on the fact that he literally had his cock in his hand, it seemed ridiculous for him to be nervous now. "I don't know," he muttered. "I wish you were actually here."

"Why?"

"I- I want to hold you. To touch you."

"Yeah?"

"Mm," he answered.

He knew that wouldn't be enough for her, and he was right: "Tell me what you would do," Constance insisted. "Tell me what we'll do on Friday night. When I'm in your bed again."

He remembered the way she had kissed him on the landing, and the way it felt to slip an arm around her waist as she lay in his bed, her long golden curls spread across the pillow, filling the air with that faint scent of flowery shampoo. "I'd kiss you," he ventured, but it sounded so weak as he said it. "No, your neck. I'd bury my face in your neck and breathe. It would smell like your hair, and sweat, and- and you."

"Your lips pressed against my neck, and my hands on your hips, guiding you."

"Long, slow strokes at first," said Antonio. "All the way in, a little further each time, but gently."

"Too slow," Constance interrupted. "You're on your back, and I'm straddling you. Riding you like a damn horse."

"With your head thrown back." It wasn't the first time the image had crossed Antonio's mind. He closed his eyes, imagining her hands on his chest as she ground her hips against his.

Just the sound of Constance's breathing was almost enough to finish him; every few moments she described another obscene image in that throaty voice and Antonio's hips would jerk in response. He ground his heels into the mattress in preparation to come hard when suddenly Constance gasped, paused, and shouted, "I'm taking a bath!"

Antonio froze, his pulse so loud and his attention so diverted that he could barely tell what was happening on the other side of the phone. It was impossible to hold his breath.

"Josie's home," Constance hissed. "Raincheck."

And just like that, the call ended with an impotent little sound effect.

Antonio let out his breath in a long, slow hiss. If Constance was that good at phone sex, Friday night was going to be exhausting.

Still too preoccupied to focus on anything but his dribbling erection, Antonio used his free hand to fumble with his phone until he was back in his photo gallery, zoomed in on the nude again like some kind of pervert. It was the sight of the mostly-bare breasts that finally put him over the edge, though the orgasm wasn't as bone-rattling as he expected. He heaved a sigh as he got to his feet and moved into the bathroom to clean himself up. "Thanks a lot, Josie," he grumbled, shooting a glare at his own empty bathtub.

He watched his reflection while he was brushing his teeth, mostly trying to decide whether he should get another haircut or let it grow out this time. It was taking a lot of work to keep his thoughts off of the nude picture that was saved to his phone. Keeping his thoughts off of Constance in general was almost impossible. It wasn't until he was rinsing off his toothbrush that it occurred to him that he had never actually been attracted to a person with breasts before, much less masturbated to an image of them. It seemed like it should have been a funny realization, but it actually just made Antonio uncomfortable. He'd thought he was firmly gay for more than twenty years now. Apparently Constance Weber was so hot that she had turned him bi. Would he still find random women attractive even after Constance inevitably dumped him, or would he go right back to sneaking glances at skinny guys in tight jeans for the rest of his life?

He started to change into a Divine Libertines t-shirt for bed, but decided to wear a shirt from last summer's company picnic and put the band shirt back. He might need a Divine Libertines shirt on Thursday. Would it be too weird to have one of the band's old t-shirts on during a backstage tour? He wasn't exactly one of the teenaged groupies they were probably used to.

Antonio found the kitten curled up in the middle of his welcome mat and scooped it into his arms before he turned off the light, unmuted the television, and climbed into bed. The cat refused to snuggle up under his arm as it had been before Constance called, but after a moment of sniffing around the bed it decided to perch on Antonio's lap and give itself a bath.

He watched it lick the underside of a back leg for a few minutes. "You're an asshole, did you know that?"

The kitten looked up at him for a moment, then went back to licking itself.

"So did you all hear the news about Joey Lange? Joey Lange, anybody?"

Antonio turned his attention to the television, which had switched over to tonight's episode of Conan. He had heard news about Joey Lange, hadn't he? He was the one who had just broken up with Constance's sister, Allie, who had gotten them the Divine Libertines tickets.

"Yeah, Joey Lange is in the news today. Big news there: apparently he and Aloysia separated last week. Yeah, they separated. Yeah. Apparently when reached for comment, Joey Lange said that Aloysia was a total Syncopated Tart."

The pun elicited loud groans from the audience, but Antonio wasn't listening for the punchline. He stared at the television, which was now showing a paparazzi shot of Joey Lange and Aloysia on the red carpet for some event. Aloysia was wearing a green gown adorned with feathers and staring seriously into the camera, but it wasn't the wild dress or its plunging neckline that was holding Antonio's attention: it was the fact that his girlfriend's enigmatic sister Allie was actually pop sensation Aloysia.

He turned his stare on the concert ticket he had laid out on the counter when he had gotten in after work.

Pop sensation Aloysia had gotten him a front row ticket to a Divine Libertines concert.

Antonio turned off the television and leaned back against his pillow, but it was a long time before he actually fell asleep.

How did a gay foster kid from Jersey end up having phone sex with the gorgeous sister of a world-famous pop star?


	7. Chapter 7

"You're early!"

Antonio took a step backward, half-thinking that she was asking him to leave. "I thought you said to come by after work."

"Yeah, don't you work nine to five?" asked Constance, checking the time on her phone. "Oh my god, it's almost six! Sophie! Hurry up in the bathroom!"

"The concert isn't until nine," Antonio said, but she had already gone back into the apartment. The door was swinging shut; Antonio slipped inside before it could lock and leave him stuck out on the landing.

The inside of the Weber apartment looked like a scene from a romantic comedy: the three sisters were darting back and forth between the bedrooms and the bathroom in a whirlwind of unfastened garments and half-arranged hair. From what he could see so far, both of Constance's sisters had put on black dresses and were concentrating now on finishing their faces. Constance herself was still wrapped in a towel, though it looked like she had already applied her makeup.

As for Antonio, that morning he had decided to go with black skinny jeans and a collared shirt under his nice purple and black sweater, which was close enough to work attire but could also transition into something a normal person would wear to a concert. His Divine Libertines t-shirt was on underneath, in case he felt overdressed. He stood nervously by the door, out of the sisters' way, untucking his shirt and neatly rolling his sleeves up to his elbow.

For nearly a half-hour, Antonio felt completely invisible. He wasn't sure what he had expected when Constance told him to meet up at the apartment after he got off work, but it wasn't this. He adjusted his leather bracelet and inspected the black nail polish on his left hand, wondering if he would look silly next to the sisters' simple dresses. If he was entirely honest, there was a large part of him that had thought that the apartment might be empty but for Constance, and that the hours before the concert would be spent, well, together. Intimately. But with the way the three women were fussing over perfecting their hair and makeup, it was pretty clear that that wasn't what Antonio was meant to be doing here.

Antonio glanced at the Aloysia poster on the far wall. She had Josie's stature, Sophie's large eyes, and Constance's sweet pout. How had he not seen right away that Aloysia was a Weber? He nodded a little at the poster, sending a mental thanks to its subject for the concert tickets for the hundredth time that week.

He had seen the Divine Libertines perform live before, of course. One of the benefits of living in the New York City area was proximity to various television show tapings and exclusive concerts. He had actually been a Divine Libertines fan since before they were famous; like everyone else, Antonio remembered the lead singer from his rise to fame as a child star, but he had disappeared from the public scene during his teenage years. Antonio specifically remembered hearing people make fun of the Divine Libertines when the band first formed several years ago, mostly laughing at the idea that a former child star could successfully lead a rock band given his public image as a precocious showoff. A couple of hit songs later and he was seeing Divine Libertines t-shirts in the subway on a daily basis.

Antonio was glad the band was famous for their sake, but in social situations he was generally more willing to come out as gay than as a Divine Libertines fan. The fanbase was notorious, mostly for their relentless obsession with its frontman, and the frontman himself was notorious for being unable to retain bandmates for more than a few months. Whenever he went to concerts or television appearances, Antonio stayed out of the lead singer's line of sight, enjoying the music on his own terms. Reputation aside, there was something magnetic about the Divine Libertines that Antonio couldn't quite define. Seeing them live was an experience like nothing else.

Google alerts had informed him the minute the concert tickets for the Madison Square Garden went on sale last month, and had informed him instants later that they were sold out. Antonio had been in a meeting, and had missed that tiny window. He had been disappointed, especially since there was a new guitarist he had never seen perform before, but now, thanks to his girlfriend, he had a front row ticket in his hand.

Constance emerged from the bedroom, fully-dressed and collected at last. Her outfit was incredible: she was in a short, v-necked dress that seemed to be made entirely of silver sequins with a matching Boho headband across her forehead. With her glittery clothes and the way her long golden curls fell loose across her back and shoulders, she was so radiant that Antonio actually blushed. "You look amazing," he said reverently.

Constance did a little twirl and curtsy. "I got this dress for seven dollars at a thrift store in Brooklyn! I'm a futuristic warrior princess."

"Am I alright?" asked Antonio, holding out his arms so she could inspect his outfit.

Constance sized him up for a moment, eyes narrowed and one hand on her chin. "Something's missing," she mused, and then her face lit up: "I've got it!" She grabbed Antonio by one arm and dragged him into the bathroom. "You can't wear an emo outfit like that unless you're going to put on eyeliner." She sat him down on the edge of the tub and produced a black pencil from inside her bag. "Look up."

"You better not give me pinkeye," Antonio grumbled, obeying nonetheless.

"What do you want, an eyeball condom?"

Antonio didn't say anything. It had just occurred to him that he was seated on the edge of the bathtub in which Constance had taken that picture on Monday night.

"Quit twitching your eyelids!"

"I can't control it. All I see is that massive pencil coming at me."

"You're such a baby."

"Do you want me to do it myself?"

"I'm almost done," said Constance. "There. You can touch it up if you think you can do better."

Antonio looked in the mirror and had to bite the insides of his cheeks to hold back a smile. He hadn't worn this much eyeliner since he was in high school, but it almost suited him better now that he had a beard. Maybe he should bring this look back. What would Rosenberg from accounting would do if Antonio started wearing eyeliner to work? "It's perfect," he said.

"Wait, not yet!" said Constance. She leaned up onto her toes and pressed a kiss firmly against his cheek. "Now."

Antonio looked back in the mirror, and this time he didn't try to suppress his smile. Constance had left a bright pink lipstick mark just above his beard. "I'm not washing that off," he said.

"Good. That way everyone knows who brought you."

"Constance! Quit playing dress-up with your boyfriend and let's go!" Josie called from the living room. "We've got to get all the way to the 1!"

"The 1?" Antonio repeated. "Constance, let me pay for a cab."

She gave him that same appraising look. "We've all got MetroCards, you know. It's only a few stops."

"I'll pay for a cab," he said again. "Unless your pop star sister is planning on sending a limo?"

"You finally made that connection, huh?" she grinned.

"'Allie'," said Antonio, hooking two fingers in the air. They were moving toward the door now; Josie and Sophie were already waiting out in the hall.

When Antonio reached for his briefcase, Constance groaned loudly. "Come on, Wall Street," she protested. "We got you looking all ready for a concert, and then you want to bring a briefcase?"

Antonio looked down at the offending accessory. "I didn't think to leave it at the office."

"You're not bringing that thing to the concert, Antonioni. Go drop it on my bed and you can swing back by to grab it afterwards. Worst case scenario I'll bring it to you tomorrow at lunch." She pointed to one the doors leading off of the main room. "Top bunk."

Antonio went through the door she had indicated and bit his lip when he saw how small the bedroom was. It was tempting to brush the sight of a room this size off as the price for Manhattan living, but knowing that two people had to share the space made it seem even worse. Directly to the left of the door was a narrow bunkbed which took up most of the room. So this was where Constance lived. Whenever she sent him late-night text messages, she was probably here. He hovered beside the bunk for a moment, remembering the boys' home where he had spent most of his childhood. At least Constance was sharing a bunk with her sister, and not with some weird brat who would spend the night pushing his feet against the mattress above him. He swung his briefcase up onto the unmade bed, wondering how long the Webers had lived here. The wall next to the top bunk was completely covered in photographs of Constance with other people of varying ages and genders. To his satisfaction, he noted that several of the pictures he could see from this edge of the bed featured him. He wondered if any of the faces he didn't know were exes. Antonio didn't have that many exes himself, but he certainly wouldn't want to sleep next to a bunch of photos of them.

Josie and Sophie had already hailed a cab by the time Antonio and Constance caught up to them at the corner. Josie was taking the front seat due to her long legs, so Antonio climbed into the back after Sophie, letting Constance have the other window seat. Moments after the doors were closed and the cabbie had pulled out into traffic, Antonio felt Constance take his hand. "Thanks for the cab, Wall Street," she murmured.

"Thanks for the ticket."

"Thanks for being a really cute fanboy."

Antonio pressed a kiss to her temple.

"You look good in eyeliner," said Constance, dropping her head onto his shoulder.

Pressing his cheek against her hair, Antonio squeezed her hand. "You look good in everything."

From the front seat, he heard Josie make a good-natured gagging sound.

With traffic, it took about fifteen minutes to arrive at Madison Square Garden, but the charge for the cab was still a fraction of what the ticket would have cost, especially since it included a backstage pass. Antonio was a little nervous about that aspect, actually: he had never dared to get too close during a Divine Libertines concert lest the frontman spot him in the crowd and decide to sing the next few songs directly into his face. It was an experience that the younger fans sought jealously, so Antonio was usually glad to step aside and let them catch the musician's eye. But with front row tickets and a backstage pass, how was he going to duck the celebrity's attention all night?

As they were being jostled through security, Antonio found himself comparing his own age to that of the other concert goers. Was he closer to the age of the over-accessorized teenagers that surrounded him, or their already-weary parents? Constance didn't seem to care, flashing her easy smile at anyone she caught staring at her dress. He even noticed her grinning patiently at the security guard who was digging through her purse. It would be so nice to go through life surrounded by the sunlight that Constance seemed to generate.

Antonio could feel the beginnings of a headache by the time they finally reached their seats. He stood for a moment, taking in the sheer size of the stadium and their proximity to the stage. They were definitely front-row center. Antonio would have preferred to be off to one side of the stage, or maybe a few rows further back. If he had come alone he would have offered to swap seats with the young girl in a homemade Divine Libertines shirt he spotted three rows away. She was sitting on the very edge of her chair, her fists pressed tightly against her cheeks and her wide-eyed gaze trained on the empty stage. Beside her sat a mother in a matching shirt who was dividing her attention between her vibrating phone and her trembling child. He wondered how much they had paid to get seats that were still so far behind Antonio's.

Constance tugged at the pocket of his jeans. "Sit!" she urged.

He obeyed, making sure to take the furthest of their four seats from the center.

"Hey, do you have any sick days?"

The question seemed so random that it took Antonio a moment to understand it. "At work?"

Constance just rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, I still have seven for this year. Why?"

"Because," she said, toying with his leather bracelet, "I was thinking that after this we go back home long enough to grab your briefcase, then I come over to your place. If you call in sick tomorrow, we could have a three-day weekend."

Antonio shifted in his seat, reminding himself that his jeans were way too tight for him to consider what a three-day weekend with Constance would mean. "Yeah."

"Yeah?" she repeated. "Good. You look so good like this."

"So I hear." He could feel his ears getting hot.

Constance laughed, then turned around to talk to Sophie, who was seated at her other side. Antonio stared at the guitar that was already sitting onstage, trying to make out what brand it was in order to distract himself from the myriad of ideas that were forming about Constance's possible plans for the weekend.

The space around them filled up quickly, and before long the stage lights came up and the room filled with applause. The opening act was a tiny South Asian woman with arms covered in intricate henna patterns and a sweet face decorated by rhinestones. It wasn't until she started singing that Antonio realized she was Kaavya Kavalieri, a singer he had been hearing a lot on the radio recently. In fact, he was pretty sure she had been involved in a commercial Stephanie had been working on a few months ago. There was a big trend in insurance ads this year to hire famous singers for their commercials ever since Geico had paid a country star to thank them in his CMA acceptance speech.

The cheers for Kavalieri were loud, but when she bowed and made her way offstage the noise in the stadium reached a deafening level. Fog rolled in from the wings, sliding off the front of the stage and completely encompassing the front few rows to the point where Antonio couldn't see anyone but Constance and the teenage boy who was seated to his left. The screams from the fans behind him told him that the Divine Libertines must have taken the stage, but the fog didn't fully clear until they had already hit the first refrain.

The seats were almost upsettingly close! Here was Wolfgang Mozart, the creative force behind the Divine Libertines, hardly ten feet away from where Antonio sat! He looked just as he always did: tousled, over-bleached hair with at least an inch of dark roots, liberally-applied eye makeup, several layers of dark, mismatched clothes, and a black-eyed stare that always made Antonio feel a little nervous. The giant screens at the top of the stadium didn't even offer a better view than the one from Antonio's free seat.

The concert was overwhelming. After the first song, Mozart paused to point out the new guitarist and prompt the crowd to give him a round of applause. Antonio couldn't really see the new guy due to a poorly-placed speaker, but he applauded anyway. He would probably stick with the band for a year or so before he cited artistic differences and moved on the way all the guitarists did. Antonio had read in an interview that Mozart was an accomplished guitarist as well, even though he rarely played for the public, and working under him meant tolerating a lot of criticism. Though he couldn't watch the new guy from his seat, his playing sounded pretty flawless to Antonio. Maybe this guitarist would be able to hang on longer than his predecessors.

They were half an hour into the concert before Antonio saw Wolfgang Mozart's gaze fall on Constance. To his horror, the singer's entire face lit up in recognition, and Antonio heard his girlfriend giggle as she waved. He tightened his grip on his knees, breathing deeply to try to combat the well of panic that was rising inside his chest. If Constance's sister Aloysia had dated Mozart long ago, of course that meant Mozart had met Constance. Why hadn't he thought of that before? Even worse, Mozart had a reputation for liking shiny things, and Constance was wearing an entire dress made of sequins.

The next few songs were basically hell, as Mozart sang them all directly to Constance. He took every opportunity to point at her, to bat his lashes at her, and to blow kisses in her direction. Antonio forgot all about the new guitarist and began to focus solely on his breathing. It was hard not to dwell on the fact that Constance had unhooked her arm from his for the first time since Kavalieri took the stage nearly an hour ago. How could she possibly be enjoying this? If the lead singer of the Divine Libertines had been singing directly into Antonio's face, he could only imagine diverting his gaze and pretending it wasn't happening until Mozart lost interest.

There were thousands of people in this auditorium, and of all of them, Mozart had honed in on Antonio's girlfriend.

Maybe Antonio was overreacting. Mozart almost always found someone in the crowd to flirt with during his performances, and Antonio had known going in that sitting in the front row put them at risk. Still, it was worse knowing that Mozart actually knew Constance. She never really talked about him other than saying he had dated her sister: how close had they been? How close would anyone be to their older sibling's romantic partner?

Why did Constance have to be so damn beautiful all the time? If she was ugly, Antonio would feel exactly the same way about her without having to worry about her catching other peoples' eyes. Why did she always have to dress so well? There was no way a marketing manager from Jersey could compete with Wolfgang Mozart, former child star and lead singer of the Divine Libertines. Antonio remembered the clumsy guitar lessons his brother Frank had given him when he was a child. If only he had stuck with it, the crappy songs he wrote might have evolved into a real talent. Maybe he could have been the guitarist for a band like the Divine Libertines, and he could have kept Constance's interest for more than a few months.

Fuck.

When the concert ended, Antonio couldn't even remember which songs they had played. Josie and Constance took off for the wings with their backstage passes in hand the minute the stage cleared. Antonio waited until Sophie followed them before he trailed along behind. If the concert hadn't been uncomfortable enough, now he was going to have to watch Constance fawn all over Mozart in a dressing room.

To his surprise, a crowd of about a dozen other people with backstage passes formed around the four of them. Josie struck up a conversation with a bouncing kid whose dad had won their tickets by being the first caller in some radio contest. Did people still listen to the radio these days? Antonio eyed the father with interest.

When the curtain was pulled aside at last and the passholders were admitted one by one into the wings, Antonio was surprised and a little relieved to be ushered into a taped-off square on the floor, where all of them were instructed to wait until the band came out to do a photo op. They weren't going into any dressing rooms! The radio contest kid looked devastated.

Constance slipped her hand into his, startling him. "A photo and an autograph is still pretty good, right?"

"Yeah," said Antonio. She had no idea how good. He cleared his throat: "Were- were you two close?"

"What? Who?"

"You and the musician." Antonio had to fight to keep his tone casual, though he was watching her reaction carefully from the corner of his eye.

To his relief, Constance laughed. "Honestly, I'm surprised he even recognized me! He only had eyes for Allie back then. I feel like I only spoke to the guy twice in my life."

"Okay," he murmured, steadying himself with a deep breath. "You still want to come over after this?"

Instead of answering, Constance rocked up onto her tiptoes and pressed a kiss to the cheek that didn't already have a lipstick mark.

A shriek from the radio contest winner announced the arrival of Wolfgang Mozart, who smiled impishly and blew her an exaggerated kiss. Antonio couldn't help but smile as the kid grabbed her dad for support. Her chubby little legs were shaking so hard! What would it be like to get that excited about something?

It looked like Mozart intended to approach the kid first, but suddenly Josie and Sophie appeared on either side of him, effectively blocking his path.

"We know all about you!" Sophie blurted.

Mozart grinned. "Yeah?"

"You were the first person to successfully break their contract with the Colloredo Casting Agency!" said Josie.

"You sang at the White House!" said Sophie.

"And you haven't had a girlfriend since-"

"Girls! Let him breathe!" Constance interrupted. She pulled Josie back inside the taped-off square.

Mozart's grin widened and he put out his arms. "Constance Weber! You're all grown up!"

"Hi Wolfgang," she said, suddenly shy. "You look- pale."

Mozart pulled her into a tight hug which lasted a lot longer than Antonio would have liked. He took a step back, then another, hoping to blend into the shadows. A security guard barked at him to stay inside the square.

The hug ended at last. "You girls wait here! We have to talk," said Mozart, and he kissed Constance's cheek with a loud smacking noise.

It was a bad evening. Watching Mozart try to seduce his girlfriend from the stage had been bad, and watching Mozart single out his girlfriend backstage was bad, but he could have moved on. Antonio would have been happy to forget that any of this had happened, but when Mozart dropped to his knees and began to speak to the crying radio contest winner, Antonio saw Constance fix a dreamy stare on the back of his head. She stood off to the side with her sisters, and of the three of them it was Constance who sighed visibly when Mozart tucked a lock of hair behind the kid's ear. It was Constance who blushed when Josie whispered something and hissed for her sister to shut up.

Antonio edged backward, making sure not to cross the line on the floor. He nearly collided with the drummer, who was hovering at the edge of the taped-off square. "Sorry," Antonio muttered.

The drummer shrugged. "You want a photo or anything?"

Antonio shook his head. "Sorry," he said again.

"Yeah." He jerked his head toward the group of passholders. "I don't think any of these kids even know I'm with the band."

Antonio followed his gaze: everyone was clustered expectantly around Mozart, who was still crouched in front of the little radio contest winner. "It might be a good thing," said Antonio. "You get to play in a great band without all the fuss and embarrassment that comes with fame."

"Embarrassment," the drummer scoffed. "Right."

They stood in silence for a moment, both watching while Mozart snapped one last photo with the kid and then moved on to a middle-aged woman who was just as excited as the contest winner had been, if not moreso.

"One of them yours?" asked the drummer, nodding at the crowd again.

"Mine?" Antonio asked. "No- well, my girlfriend's over there. Her sister got us the tickets."

"Girlfriend? Tough break."

Antonio rolled his eyes. He wasn't sure if the drummer meant that it was a tough break to have a girlfriend in general, or to have a girlfriend in the same room as Wolfgang Mozart. Either way, it was rude. Suddenly conscious of the lipstick marks Constance had left on his face, Antonio used the palm of his hand to scrub both cheeks clean. It wasn't like she was paying him any attention anyway.

The bass player and the new guitarist emerged from somewhere. Antonio saw a few people in the crowd shoot curious glances at them, but no one left Mozart's side. The drummer beckoned his bandmates over.

"Where are we going after this?" asked the bass player.

"I don't know. Which of these fans do you bet Wolfgang will bring?"

Antonio edged away from them, uncomfortable with the conversation and with the answer.

"That's the girl from the front row. The one in the silver dress," the drummer said.

Antonio could feel his cheeks burning.

"Oh yeah, definitely her. Probably those two girls with her, too."

"Everybody else here looks too young, anyway."

"So he probably wants the one in sequins, which means the other two are fair game."

Antonio took another step away from the band.

"Two of them, three of us. We gonna have to fight over women on your first night out with us?"

"Actually, I'm dating someone," said a new voice. "So nobody needs to fight."

A whispered cheer and the sound of a high five.

"Straight people are so weird," the third person muttered.

That comment was the first thing to make Antonio smile all night. He turned his head slightly, hoping to catch sight of the ally who had spoken. He was already a little familiar with the drummer, and the bass player was leering at the Weber sisters, so that left the new guitarist as the owner of the third voice.

He was a tall, broad guy with dark hair and a round face. It was a little hard to see his features in the darkness, but something immediately struck Antonio about the new guitarist: he looked incredibly familiar.

A few moments later the guitarist glanced at him, and Antonio realized he was staring. He cleared his throat and averted his gaze, but the guitarist's face was stuck in his thoughts. Had he been in another band before this? Had he been on television? He definitely knew the face well, but distantly. Maybe he had been a side character in a movie.

Antonio slid a finger into his pocket and touched the edge of his phone. If he got the guy's name, he could look the guitarist up on IMDB. He looked over in his direction again, and to his surprise the guitarist was staring right back, his own brows drown together thoughtfully.

Antonio felt his face grow warm. He dropped his gaze to the floor, but the guitarist came over anyway. "Hey, have we met?" he asked.

Even his voice sounded familiar now! "I'm not sure," said Antonio. Since that they were speaking, he had a chance to study the guitarist's face up close. He definitely knew him.

The guitarist stuck out a hand. "Well, we're meeting now, anyway."

Antonio took his hand politely.

"I'm Frank, the new guitarist," he said. "Frank Salieri."


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello from the year 2017 and I'd like to apologize for changing up the timeline in this chapter, but I realized that Joe's birthday should have been in February and Antonio's birthday would be mid-August which would mean he and Constance had been friends for six months instead of three like I said five million times in the preceding chapters. Thanks for reading, have a lovely day, bye!

Antonio's grip tightened on the guitarist's hand. He tried to speak, but when his lips formed the name no sound came out.

Frank. After all this time, here was his older brother Frank.

He saw him glance down at their hands, a crease between his brows. Was Antonio crushing his fingers? He couldn't tell. For a moment, he couldn't even hear anything but his heartbeat.

A sweet voice was coming from somewhere beyond his pulse; Antonio forced himself to turn his head to Constance. Her cheeks were flushed. What was she saying?

Was he still clinging to the guitarist's hand?

Now he saw that same furrow between Constance's brows. "Antonio?" Her gaze slid from him to the guitarist.

"Antonio," the guitarist repeated. A flicker of recognition.

How had they not both known at first sight? They had the same dark hair, the same build, the same nose.

The guitarist wrenched his fingers free from Antonio's and seized him by the shoulders. "Antonio?" he said again, his voice louder. "My Antonio?" Without waiting for a response, he pulled him into a hug, their chests colliding so hard that Antonio coughed against his neck.

Frank, his brother Frank.

Antonio had last seen his brother almost twenty years ago. He had held onto hope of finding him again throughout his childhood: when they sent him to Long Island he had stolen phone books off of stoops to scan for their last name; he asked local bars if they had heard of his band; the day Lorenzo got his first myspace page Antonio had asked him to do a search. 411, facebook, google, all of it had consistently failed him for all this time until somehow Frank Salieri joined a world-famous rock band and Antonio's girlfriend's pop star sister got him a backstage pass.

Frank was crushing his ribcage. He had a hand against the back of Antonio's head, pressing their cheeks together. It was a desperate hug. Antonio's own hands were splayed awkwardly at his sides, but after a moment he collected enough presence of mind to pose them gently on his brother's back.

Frank! After twenty years, his arms were around his brother Frank! Suddenly, he was squeezing him as tightly as he was being squeezed.

"An- Antonio?"

Frank released him, putting his hands back on Antonio's shoulders and studying his face. "You look so much like Mom," he said. Tears were standing in his dark eyes.

Constance, who until that moment had been watching the encounter with confusion, gasped aloud.

Frank shot her an inquisitive glance, then let go of Antonio's shoulders. "Hey. Sorry." He gestured to Antonio and then to himself. "Kind of a big moment."

She just nodded, wide-eyed. "You're his brother!"

"Frank Salieri," he said, extending a hand to Constance.

Antonio remained precisely where he was, unable to look away.

He had always expected that one day he would stumble across a facebook page and nonchalantly send his brother a friend request. They would meet at a Starbucks somewhere and awkwardly chat about their lives since Antonio had been sent into foster care. Frank would have a wife and kids and just enough time to let Antonio know that he was successful, and then he would be one more name in a cluttered facebook newsfeed.

How could he have been so wrong? After he finished greeting Constance, Frank put his hand back on Antonio's shoulder, as though he thought they would lose each other again if he let go for too long. A tear had slipped down his cheek, leaving a cloudy trail of black eyeliner behind.

"Um- Well, Wolfgang is on the phone with Mom. We're trying to convince her to let us open the bar so the band can come over and we can all catch up." She grinned at Frank. "I guess you'll have a lot of that to do!"

Behind her, Antonio saw that most of the passholders were being escorted back out into the stadium. Only the Weber sisters and the band lingered. Mozart had Constance's phone against his ear and a pained expression on his face. "Mrs. Weber, I profoundly regret it," he was saying. A moment's pause, and then, "She's pregnant?"

"Hey, give me your number," said Frank, digging a phone out of his pocket with his free hand. Antonio complied, and a moment later his phone buzzed against his leg. He had a new text message from a New Jersey area code that simply read, "It's Frank".

He tried to save the number into his own phone, but suddenly his hand was shaking so hard that he couldn't hit the right letters. His brother laughed, giving his shoulder a squeeze. "You look great," he said. "You're taller than me."

Mozart approached Constance, her phone still at his ear. "Then I'd like to rent out the room," he was saying. "Or the whole bar!"

Constance put out a hand, her lips pursed; Mozart handed her the phone. "Mom. Mom!" She rolled her eyes up to the distant ceiling. "If Wolfgang- Mom! If- if... Mom!"

Antonio bit back a grin, covering his ear with his free hand as he so often did when he thought of Constance's aggressive mother.

Constance paced away, leaving Mozart with Antonio and his brother. He noticed that Frank quickly wiped the back of his wrist across his eyes, but it only smeared his eyeliner even further.

Mozart looked Antonio up and down. "Hi."

"This is my brother!" Frank blurted, giving Antonio's shoulder a little shake. "They split us up when we were kids, but here he is!"

Mozart's glitter-lined gaze drifted back and forth between the two of them, uncomprehending. "You look alike," he offered vaguely.

Antonio suddenly clapped his own hand over Frank's. The shock must have been receding, leaving behind a strong instinct to cling to this man who was essentially a stranger, and was also the only family he had ever known. He didn't let go until long after Constance announced that they had gotten permission to open up the bar for the band: the musicians guided them through a series of hallways and out into the street where a limo was waiting at the curb, and Antonio was forced to release his brother long enough to clamber into the back seat. The car had peeled away into traffic before he realized that he was seated against a window with Frank at his side, and Constance was in the far corner next to Mozart.

"I looked for you," Frank said suddenly.

"Me too."

"Every Saturday. I jumped the turnstile at Penn Station and sneaked onto the LIRR. Every weekend I got off at a different stop and I walked down each street. I asked kids playing on the sidewalk if they had seen you. I looked up at windows in case you might be sitting out on a fire escape."

"I stole phone books," Antonio said. It sounded feeble after Frank's story, but to his surprise his brother laughed.

"The Salieri boys! At least we know we aren't cut out for detective work."

A laugh escaped Antonio's throat without his permission; it sounded a little too much like a snort for his liking, and he could feel his cheeks growing hot. He couldn't tell if Frank had heard it.

Their group all waited in the limo while Josie opened up the bar. Antonio noticed that Constance and Mozart appeared to be lost in a hushed conversation, and that her cheeks were still red. Did she still want to come home with him?

Did he still want her to? Sex didn't seem like such a high priority right now.

Once they were all inside the bar, Frank led him to a little table in the corner; Antonio recognized it as the same table he had briefly occupied the night he met Constance. The autographed caricature of Aloysia presided over their conversation, a constant reminder of who had made this reunion possible. How long had it been since he had met Constance? He tried to think back, but he only had a vague idea that it had been at Joe's birthday party toward the beginning of the year. Five months, maybe? Six? And here he was again.

Within a few moments Josie had the music blaring and Sophie was darting around behind the counter preparing drinks. After scanning the little room, Antonio found Constance and Mozart tucked away at a table beneath the karaoke machine. Constance's back was to him, but he could see that Mozart was staring at her while she talked with an intensity that would have made him nervous had he been its recipient. He shook his head and turned back to his own table just as Frank returned with drinks. His brother had mercifully selected red wine for both of them. The Salieri boys, Antonio thought as he accepted a glass.

His brother plopped into the seat across from him and raked his fingers through his hair. Antonio was still staring. When they had last seen each other, Frank had seemed like a towering teenager, practically an adult, but now it was obvious how close in age they really were. How old was Frank now? Early thirties, obviously. Antonio's memory of him seemed like a bad police sketch now, with crucial details missing. His brother shared his coloring, but he had dark, well-shaped brows and cheekbones that were far prettier than Antonio's. If he didn't know that they were brothers, Antonio would have thought he was hot.

Frank's dimples caught him off guard when he smiled. "So what have you been up to? Did that family adopt you, or did you get passed around?"

"Passed around," Antonio said. "I work at an ad firm now."

"An ad firm? In a 9-to-5? Yikes. Is that what you wanted?"

Antonio shrugged. "I wanted to be able to make rent."

"Fair enough," said Frank, raising his wine glass. "To making rent!"

"What about you?" Antonio tapped his glass against his brother's and took a shallow sip.

"About what you'd expect. I made tips playing at bars and nightclubs. Subway platforms and street corners too, sometimes. I hitchhiked out to California and lived with friends for a few years. Got arrested for panhandling at one point, so when I got out I came back to the City. Wolfgang heard me play at a bar in Brooklyn last summer and invited me to join the band, and now here I am." He downed half his wine, watching Antonio through his lashes. "You look so much like Mom," he said again.

Antonio felt his cheeks turn hot, though he wasn't sure why. "Do you have family?" he blurted.

"Kind of! A cat named Troy and a dog named Luna. You?"

"Just a cat. You said backstage you were in a relationship," he went on quickly, hoping his brother wouldn't ask what his cat's name was.

That made Frank grin, bringing out those dimples again. "I lied. Those guys can be real dicks. I'm not into using Wolfgang's music to pick up partners, so that's my go-to excuse."

Antonio nodded. He toyed with his wine glass, aligning the base of it with a knot in the wood of the table, wondering if Frank was going to ask why Constance had been ignoring Antonio for hours. He took another sip of wine, then realized that Frank probably had no idea Constance was his girlfriend.

"Your turn, new guy!" said one of the other band members (Antonio had already forgotten which was the drummer and which was the bass player) as he dropped a tablet off at their table. "Pick some good songs and maybe let someone besides Wolfgang do the singing, huh?"

Antonio had barely even noticed that the karaoke machine was still playing. It was a song he didn't recognize, and no one had grabbed either of the microphones that were waiting menacingly at an empty table near the door. Frank turned the tablet to face Antonio. "You pick."

He had only been in the karaoke bar twice before, but he already had a pretty good feel for what genres of music where available in the catalog and which songs went over best with big crowds. Antonio paused on Aloysia's name for a moment, wondering if the opening notes of Syncopated Heart would make Constance come drop into his lap the way she had at Stephanie's going-away party. On the flip side, Frank might think he had bad taste in music if he chose an overplayed pop song. Antonio was ready to scroll away, but then Frank reached over their wine glasses and tapped the song himself. When Antonio looked up in surprise, he just shrugged and said, "I like Aloysia."

"She got me the ticket," Antonio blurted, touching the backstage access badge that still hung around his neck.

"What? The real Aloysia? The singer?"

Antonio nodded, unable to meet Frank's eye.

"You know her?"

He stole a glance at Constance. "No. I'm dating her sister."

"What?" laughed Frank. He hadn't noticed the caricature that was watching them from the nearby wall. "Have you met her? She seems amazing. I love how poised she always is in interviews, now matter what kind of sexist shit they throw at her. She's such a good role model for her fans."

"I didn't even know they were related until a week ago," he said. "Constance has always just called her 'Allie'."

"Allie," Frank repeated, his dimples appearing again as he smiled. "If you ever meet her, you have to introduce me."

Antonio just nodded. His ears were getting hot, but he wasn't sure why.

"So this girlfriend," said Frank, "she's good enough for my little brother?"

"Too good, maybe," Antonio muttered. It just slipped out; he wasn't sure if he meant it or not, but Frank heard him nonetheless.

"She's the one in the silver dress that Wolfgang's been monopolizing all night, isn't she? You keep looking over there."

Antonio chose to drain the rest of his wine instead of answering.

"Hey, don't worry about it," Frank said. "I know people act like Wolfgang is some big ladies' man, but it's all PR. 'Libertine' is just the band name. Behind closed doors, he's one of the most sincere, open people you've ever met. He's not gonna steal your woman out from under you."

That particular turn of phrase put an image into Antonio's head that made his ears burn even hotter. He cleared his throat, glancing mistrustfully in Mozart's direction out of the corner of his eye before busying himself with the song selection again.

Sophie collected the tablet as soon as Antonio unhanded it, taking it over to the table where both the other band members sat with Josie. Sophie seemed to have taken on the role of bartender for the night, leaving the four musicians to distribute themselves among her two sisters and Antonio. He thought about the times Constance had told stories about her sisters' antics, and he realized that she had never mentioned Sophie being in a relationship. There were dozens of stories about Josie sneaking men into the apartment or creeping back into their shared room in the dark hours of the morning, but none for Sophie. Was she shy, or was she just better at keeping secrets from her sisters?

As the song changed overhead, a delighted squeal came from the table under the karaoke machine: Constance jumped to her feet and made a dash for one of the unattended microphones. To Antonio's horror, Mozart pushed himself out of his chair and followed, taking the other one.

It wasn't a song Antonio knew, but Constance and Mozart sang every word in perfect unison. At one point they even changed a lyric: it was impossible to tell what they said, but it must have been an inside joke for they both shouted their new lyric at the same time and then giggled through the next few lines. It was gross.

"Hey," said Frank, nudging Antonio's hand with the stem of a full wine glass. "Don't worry so much. If you don't trust her, at least trust me when I say you can trust him."

Antonio accepted the glass. "Sorry."

"Talk to me instead! What's your favorite TV show?"

All these years later and Frank still had to babysit him. Antonio took several long gulps of his wine but stopped himself draining the whole glass, remembering the first time he came to this karaoke bar and how poorly he had conducted himself. He set the glass down, lining its base up against that same ring, and straightened his shoulders, turning his back on Constance and Mozart.

There were some things about Frank that were exactly what Antonio would have expected: his quiet patience, his easy smile, and his success with his music all made perfect sense. Then there were surprises, like the fact that he was apparently addicted to daytime soap operas. Met with Antonio's incredulous stare, he just laughed and said that he had been unemployed for a long time.

Over at the empty table beneath the karaoke machine, Antonio saw Constance's phone light up. She and Wolfgang were still at the front of the bar, she holding the microphone and he squinting intently at the song-selection tablet. Josie and the two musicians were chatting together at the back wall, and over at the bar Sophie was serving a drink to Kaavya Kavalieri, whom Antonio hadn't even realized was with their group. No one but Antonio saw the phone light up. Should he try to draw Constance's attention to it, or go over and check it himself?

"You're obsessed!" he heard Frank say.

"It's not that," said Antonio, pointing at the table. "Someone's calling her phone."

"You're not one of those controlling dudes who stalks his girlfriend's phone records and hacks her emails, are you?"

"What? No, of course not!"

"Well that's good news, at least."

The abandoned phone finally went dark, and Antonio sighed. "It might be important. I don't know. She has a whole family to worry about, and she makes friends so easily. Her mom is always worrying about her. And she's always smiling."

To his surprise, Frank reached across the table and closed a hand over his. He didn't say anything, but his mouth was set into a grim line.

"I couldn't control her life even if I wanted to. I just wish-" but he couldn't figure out how to end the sentence without sounding pathetic. "I don't know what I'm trying to say."

"I wish I could have been there while you were growing up," said Frank, and something about his tone put tears in Antonio's eyes.

On the empty table, Constance's phone lit up again. Antonio heaved a sigh and pushed himself out of his chair, taking his and Frank's glasses over to the bar to be refilled.

Kavalieri smiled at him while Sophie uncorked the nearest bottle, and Antonio nodded politely. He noticed that Josie and the two musicians had disappeared, and the door to the back room was closed now. Josie's purse was lying on their table, and the glow inside almost definitely meant that her phone was ringing too. Was something wrong? Antonio started to glance over at Constance, but he could feel his brother's eyes on him. Determined to mind his own business, he turned back in time to see Sophie putting an empty wine bottle in the recycling bin.

"Hey, Mozart's paying for all this, right?"

She nodded.

"In that case, can you go ahead and open another bottle? I'll just take it over to our table."

Frank laughed when Antonio set down two overfilled glasses and the fresh bottle. "You turned out all right, you know," he teased.

Antonio felt himself flush. At the moment, he wasn't particularly convinced that that was true.

"Hey, let's start getting lunch together or something. It sounds like you could use somebody to talk to, and I know I could too. You wouldn't believe the crap that comes out of these guys' mouths sometimes."

Antonio started to explain that he always had lunch with Constance, but something made him change his mind. Instead, he just nodded. "That'd be good."

The sudden sound of someone rapping on the glass door of the bar startled Antonio so badly that he almost knocked over the bottle of wine. He glanced around the bar, but both Sophie and Constance were deep in conversation with their respective singers and Josie was still missing from the back table. "I'll see who that is and let them know the bar is closed," he muttered, leaving Frank alone again. Lunch with Frank would actually be pretty great, he thought irritably, since it was impossible to focus in this noisy bar.

A tall, slender woman in oversized sunglasses and a floppy hat was waiting on the sidewalk outside. Antonio checked his watch and noticed that it was well past midnight (and, of course, that he had missed the last train back to Jersey). He unlocked the door and leaned out, saying, "I'm sorry for the noise, miss, but the bar is actually closed."

The woman slid her sunglasses down the length of her nose and frowned at him. "You're Antonio, right?" Her voice was unmistakably familiar.

He was facing pop sensation Aloysia.

Weirdly starstruck, Antonio backed away from the door and held it open. He found himself studying Aloysia as she passed him, noticing that she was just taller than Constance, that she seemed slimmer and more frail in person than she was on television. He remembered his fear earlier in the evening that his gratitude would make him want to kiss Aloysia if ever he met her: instead, he was plastered against the wall like a fumbling footman. Meeting pop sensation Aloysia in person and having her address him by name was somehow more terrifying than being front row center for a Divine Libertines concert at Madison Square Garden.

"Allie!" Sophie cried from the back of the room.

Her older sister waved before removing her sunhat and the scarf that had been wrapped all the way up to her chin. She was wearing no makeup and a normal pair of jeans with a plain t-shirt. Seeing light circles under her eyes and a zit on one cheek was particularly alarming since Aloysia always dressed and conducted herself like a perfect mechanical doll on television. "Hey, Sophlette," she called back, sweeping the tiny sister up into hug. "How was the concert?"

"You'll never guess who opened for them! Come here!" Sophie said, dragging her sister back to the corner of the bar where Kavalieri sat.

Antonio suddenly realized that Frank was just as starstruck as he was. He shook himself and, trying hard to seem calm, went back over to his brother.

"She's amazing," Frank said breathlessly.

"Was that Allie?" asked Constance from just by his ear. "Wait, where's Josie?"

"I'm not sure," Antonio lied. He glanced over to where Wolfgang stood, frozen in place much like the Salieri brothers had been, and resisted the urge to ask Constance how her night was going without him.

"Oh my god, is she-?" Constance had noticed the abandoned purse on the back table. "Allie! Mom's not with you, is she?"

Pop sensation Aloysia looked up long enough from her conversation to shake her head. "She went straight upstairs to bed."

"We should keep it down, then," said Constance, wandering off in search of the tablet that controlled the karaoke machine.

When the music switched off, Antonio suddenly realized just how bad his headache had become. He looked ruefully at the hardly-touched bottle of wine on the table. "I'm starting to think I should call it a night," he said to Frank. "I have to work tomorrow."

His brother finally tore his gaze away from Aloysia Weber. "Hey, text me when you get home, okay? And let me know if you want to meet for lunch or whatever. I'm free during the day."

"I might have plans tomorrow, but I can probably do it sometime this weekend." He paused, one hand floating just above the back of his chair. What if he walked away from this table and never saw his brother again?

"You should call me," Frank blurted. "Whenever you want. If I can't answer right away, I'll call back the minute I can, okay?" He got to his feet and pulled him into a long, tight hug. "You're not alone. You were never supposed to be alone, okay? I was always out there, thinking about you and looking for you. Now that I've got your number, I'm gonna nag you even more than your girlfriend's mom. You ready for that?"

Antonio could just nod against his brother's neck, not quite trusting himself to speak through the sudden lump in his throat.

After Frank released him, he gathered up his wine glass and migrated toward the back of the room where Aloysia sat with Sophie and Kavalieri. Antonio lingered for a moment, pretending to check his phone, but he was watching Constance from the corner of his eye. Was she going to leave with him or not? Had she changed her mind after all?

He stood in the corner for a moment longer, watching her murmur something into Mozart's ear. He knew his face was flushing again. Why didn't she look up? Why wasn't she interested in what he was doing?

When he finally felt like he couldn't find any more reasons to delay, Antonio jammed his phone into his pocket and went out into the street to find a cab that would take him back to Jersey.

 

Antonio was in the company kitchen retrieving his third cup of dark coffee for the morning when Rosenberg from accounting pulled him aside and told him that there was a woman waiting for him in his office. He cringed and ducked into the bathroom to smooth down his hair and scowl at the shadows under his eyes. He had been halfway to work that morning before he remembered that he had left the bar without Constance last night. He had been dreading their lunch date all day, though he had postponed meeting his brother just in case. Was she going to be annoyed with him for leaving without her? Or was she going to tell him that it was over between them already now that she had reunited with Wolfgang Mozart? The reflection in the mirror was tired and grim, but there was nothing Antonio could do to fix any of that without a time machine that would let him relive his choices the night before. He steeled himself and tried again to straighten his rumpled collar.

But it was not Constance who was waiting for him in his office: standing beside his desk with his briefcase dangling from two fingers was a very irate Cecilia Weber.

"You!" she snarled, startling Antonio so badly that some of his hot coffee sloshed out of his cup and over his fingers. He quickly set it down on the edge of his desk.

"Mrs. Weber!"

"I found this in my daughter's bed!" she hissed, hurling his briefcase at his chest. It burst open on impact, sending papers and business cards fluttering onto the carpet.

"I didn't- we went to the concert last night and I went home. That's all! Ask her what happened. Ask any of your daughters!"

But Cecilia Weber had pulled a grocery bag out of her purse and flung it at Antonio. This time, he caught it. Inside were the pictures that he had seen stuck to Constance's bedroom wall the night before. Pictures of himself and Constance. "Mrs. Weber-" he began, but Cecilia had picked up his open briefcase and was reaching into the zipper pocket at the edge. "Mrs. Weber, that's not-"

From inside the zipper pocket she withdrew a handful of wrapped condoms and threw them down with all of his papers. "On my daughter's bed!" she shouted.

"Mrs. Weber, I assure you, your daughter and I have never-"

Cecilia took something else out of her purse: Constance's cell phone. She put in an unfamiliar code and cleared the lock screen. Had she changed it? He had seen Constance use the phone only last night, and she had used the same code as always. "What do you think I'll find in my daughter's sent messages?" she asked, in a tone that indicated that she had already been through them all.

"Mrs. Weber, Constance is an adult," Antonio blurted, but when he saw her knuckles turn white around the phone he knew he had made a mistake.

Behind him, Antonio heard someone, probably nosy Rosenberg, walk past the open door a little too slowly. Cecilia glanced over his shoulder and suddenly she adopted a calm, cold demeanor that managed to be just as frightening as she had been when she was throwing things. "This is my phone now," she said brusquely. "Constance will be given a flip phone when she earns my trust again. It will not have a camera, and it will not have your number in it. She has blocked you on facebook, and you are banned from entering my bar. If I see you in there ever again, I'll take out a restraining order on you."

"Mrs. Weber, surely this is too-"

"Too what?" she snapped. "You think I haven't seen what happens when these godless, sex-obsessed men come into a woman's life? You think I'm going to let another one of my babies come crying back to me after getting knocked up and thrown out? Constance hid you from me for a reason. If you were a good person, she would have introduced you to me right away. I'm not an idiot!"

"Did you- did you already speak to Constance?"

"Of course I did. How do you think I got this? You think I sneak around behind my daughter's back and steal her phone to check on her?"

"Mrs. Weber, please," Antonio said, his face suddenly warm. "I care about your daughter. Even if she didn't want to date, even if she didn't-"

"Oh, is that why you left a briefcase full of condoms on her bed last night?"

"Don't- please don't- I would never expect anything from her, I would never..." he trailed off, afraid to admit that it was Constance who had kissed him first, and Constance who had asked him to buy the condoms. "She's my friend, Mrs. Weber. She's my best friend."

"Not anymore," Cecilia said, pulling her purse back up onto her shoulder and retrieving her jacket.

"Please," Antonio repeated, cringing at how desperate he sounded. "Please!"

She paused at the door, dropping Constance's phone back into her purse. "There are eight million people in this city, Mr. Salieri. I'm sure you'll be able to survive without screwing my daughter." And with that, she left him alone in his trashed, empty office.


	9. Chapter 9

Somewhere outside, a songbird would not shut up.

Antonio groaned, then immediately regretted it when the sound of his own voice reverberated around his skull like a jackhammer. He burrowed deeper into the blankets, moving slowly as even the friction of his ear against the mattress was deafening. His tongue felt thick and dry in his throat, but he couldn't imagine getting up and fetching a glass of water when his head was this heavy. If that bird would get over itself, maybe he could go back to sleep until he felt better.

What was a songbird doing around here, anyway? The rest of New Jersey might be called the Garden State, but once you were within twenty miles of Manhattan it was more like the Moldy Concrete State. As a rule, the only wildlife that found Antonio's apartment building appealing were roaches, pigeons and the occasional rat.

He sighed again, rolling onto his other side. Judging by the tension in his back, he had been lying in the same position for hours. The mattress felt a lot softer than usual, he noticed. Was that just because he was hungover?

With deep reluctance, Antonio opened his eyes, and what he saw made his stomach drop. The sheets that surrounded him were a deep burgundy color. They weren't his sheets. This wasn't his bed.

He froze, straining his ears for a clues to his whereabouts. He was sprawled across the bed, so it must be at least as large as his own. That ruled out Constance's family apartment, where she shared a bunkbed with her younger sister. He could just hear the sounds of kids whooping somewhere down the street, and the unmistakable noise of a bouncing basketball. A park? That would explain the songbird outside the window. From within the apartment, he heard only a ticking clock and the occasional footsteps of upstairs neighbors.

Uh-oh.

Antonio peeled the sheets away, squinting against the bright sunlight that was filling the little bedroom. There was a queen-sized bed, a listing bookshelf packed with secondhand video games, and a grocery bag of dirty laundry hanging from the doorknob. It was the kind of place a college kid might have lived in if he had suddenly gotten rich enough to afford his own apartment in Queens. This was Lorenzo's room.

"Dammit!" Antonio hissed. He staggered out of the bed and around the corner to the bathroom, making it to the toilet just in time to puke. What misguided, drunken choices could he have possibly made last night that would have led him here? He used a handful of toilet paper to clean his face and the toilet seat, then rested his forehead against the cool glass of the window. Outside, that stupid bird was still wittering away. It occurred to Antonio that he was alone in Lorenzo's apartment. What if he just got his things together and left? 

The memory arose of his briefcase lying on the floor of his office, papers scattered in every direction. Antonio turned to the sink, splashing icy water onto his face. His reflection in the mirror was haggard, with chapped lips and dark circles under his eyes. He looked down, realizing with relief that he was still wearing his white undershirt, boxer shorts, and socks. It had been a long time since he had found himself in Lorenzo's apartment, but the last time he hadn't been quite so fully-dressed when he awoke.

Antonio's clothes and briefcase weren't in the bedroom. He halfheartedly straightened the sheets before continuing down the hall to the living room, where he found his his trousers, shirt, and jacket draped over the back of the couch. His shoes were waiting over by the door. It certainly didn't look like his clothes had been removed in the heat of passion, at least. The bedsheets had been clean as well. Maybe nothing blindingly stupid had happened after all.

Thankfully Lorenzo still kept his ibuprofen in the cabinet over his kitchen sink. Antonio filled a cup with a little tap water and took four. Over in the recycle bin, he spotted a small tower of empty wine bottles. Well, that explained his pounding head, at least. Was he well enough to slip out?

It was worth a try, Antonio told himself. Anything to avoid awkwardly asking Lorenzo whether or not they had had sex last night. He returned to the couch and began getting dressed, sighing at his wrinkled dress shirt. Maybe if he kept his jacket closed on the way home it wouldn't look like a walk of shame.

His pants were still around his ankles when he heard a key turning in the lock. He hesitated for an extra moment between taking them back off and pulling them up the rest of the way, which left him bent over with his back to the door when it opened. Just when he thought the morning couldn't have been more embarrassing.

"He's already up!" said Lorenzo's voice. "We brought hangover food."

Antonio buttoned his pants as fast as he could, casting one last rueful glance at his wrinkled shirt before turning to face his unexpected host.

Lorenzo swept into the room with his arms full of assorted takeout containers. He looked uncharacteristically chipper. 

Then, in a turn of events that Antonio could only describe as 'baffling', his long-lost brother Frank entered the apartment. 

"Whoa!" Frank laughed upon catching Antonio's eye. "You look like you slept in a gutter!"

"What- what are you doing here?" Antonio stammered. The ibuprofen had been making a little headway, but now his skull was pounding again.

"You called me, kid. You don't remember any of it?"

"We were about halfway through the zinfandel when you started insisting that your brother lives in Queens and you have his phone number. I honestly didn't expect it to be true. I mean, you've been looking for Frank for as long as we've known each other." Lorenzo was spreading a collection of takeout boxes from various restaurants across his coffee table.

"The wine rainbow," Antonio remembered. He had insisted on buying a white, a rosé, and a red, and he had done his best to make sure that he and Lorenzo finished all three while watching a Property Brothers marathon. From the looks of it, Lorenzo had been a lot less dedicated to the cause than Antonio. He didn't remember blacking out precisely, but he did remember that the room seemed to get darker and darker around him as the evening wore on. Well, now he'd never know if that one obnoxious Canadian couple had picked the brick house in the woods or the semi-detached that was closer to work.

"Here," said Frank, passing Antonio a carton of coconut water. "You need electrolytes."

Antonio obediently uncapped it and took a long sip. He wasn't a huge fan of coconut water, but any taste was preferable to his current mix of morning breath and sick. "So, uh, how long have you been here?"

"Well, you called me around dinner time," Frank answered with his easy smile. "I only live a few blocks away, actually, so I came over to see what was going on. You'd finished off at least a bottle of wine--mostly by yourself, so I hear--" he added, exchanging grins with Lorenzo, "and by then you were getting really worried about-"

"My cat," Antonio groaned. "I remember that part."

"So I took your keys and a car and went over to check on her."

"What? But I live in Jersey! That must have cost a fortune!"

Frank shrugged. "It was Wolfgang's car, not a taxi. Anyway, now I know where you live."

"And now we can have our unwillingly-single guys' weekend without worrying about a kitten starving to death or Antonio staggering drunkenly through the subway unattended," Lorenzo teased. "Now, somebody better start eating this food before we have to microwave it."

The sheer variety of takeout they had brought back made Antonio wonder if maybe Lorenzo and Frank had gotten a little drunker than they were letting on. There were enough burgers, stir fry, matzo ball soup, and even smoothies to feed an entire office building. Antonio felt a little too gross to eat at first, but the smell of fried rice finally won him over. 

It was strange to watch Frank and Lorenzo chatting like old friends, but after a while Antonio had to admit he was enjoying it. He wondered if this was how Constance had felt when Aloysia came home last weekend. He could imagine all four Weber sisters piled onto the bottom bunk in Constance's shared bedroom, Sophie with her head on Aloysia's lap, Constance flipping through photos on her phone and Josie... what would Josie be doing? Painting her toenails, maybe. Hanging out with siblings must be different from hanging out with fellow foster kids, at least. Antonio had often tried to imagine what it would be like if he and Frank had never been separated, and had known each other their whole lives. The closest relationship to a brother in Antonio's life would have to be Lorenzo: they had been friends since school, but at the end of each day Lorenzo had gotten into his mom's car while Antonio took the bus back to whichever temporary home was letting him stay at the time. Lorenzo had helped his little brothers with their homework and sat at a long table with all of them when dinner was served, roughhousing and giggling about things that had happened at school that day. Antonio, more often than not, found himself sitting down to a meal with people who felt like strangers, with whom he had only lived for a few months. Before going into any new home, he had always been warned at length not to be disrespectful to the family or waste their resources, since he was living off their charity like a long-term guest. By the time he was old enough to get a job and start living on his own, he strongly preferred spending his free time in his own space where he knew he wasn't a burden on anyone. It was hard to make friends that way.

"Hey, mind if I watch TV?" Frank asked. "One of my shows comes on in a few minutes."

Lorenzo cast a sidelong glance at Antonio. "Uh-"

"It's Shabbat," Antonio said. "Lorenzo tries to stay unplugged on Saturdays."

"Don't worry about it," said Lorenzo. "I shouldn't have had the TV on last night if I was going to be good this weekend, anyway."

Antonio grimaced. "Sorry. I did bring wine, though, so you could have done your chant thing if you wanted."

"The Kiddush."

"Right."

"Don't worry about the TV, guys," Frank said. "If I watch my show on primewire tomorrow there aren't commercials, so it's a win-win."

"I'm still skipping this weekend, though," said Lorenzo, jumping to his feet, "which means I get to check my phone now." He collected some of the empty boxes and trashed the crumpled napkins before hurrying down the hall to his room.

Frank turned to Antonio, dropping his own phone back into his pocket. "So? Now that you're a little more yourself, what was going on last night? I never thought I'd see my baby brother drinking wine straight out of the bottle and crying about a cat."

"I cried?" Antonio winced.

"Well, you'd had a lot to drink."

Remembering the way Frank had scolded him for being so fixated on Constance and Wolfgang Thursday night, Antonio heaved a sigh. "It's about Constance. Don't judge me."

"Kid, if I wasn't going to judge you for weeping about your kitten being lonely then I'm not going to judge your relationship drama. What happened?"

"Well, Thursday night she was supposed to come home with me. We were going to have a three-day weekend. But after she reunited with Mozart she didn't seem to care anymore. Then, I got to work Friday morning and her mom was waiting for me. She told me we can't see each other anymore."

"Her mom? How old is this girl?"

"Only a couple years younger than I am," Antonio said. "Her dad died a few years ago and her mom has been really protective ever since. All her sisters live at home except Allie."

"Aloysia?"

"Yeah. And- well, last weekend Joey Lange dumped Aloysia even though she's pregnant, so she's back at home too. I'd left my briefcase on Constance's bed and when her mom opened it she found, uh, condoms."

"Yikes," said Frank. "Listen, Constance is an adult and so are you, but it sounds like her family needs her right now. What if you let them take care of each other, and meanwhile the two of us can get reacquainted. When things have settled down, then you could try to reach out to her again. It sounds like the biggest problem was sneaking around and hiding the relationship from her mom."

Antonio nodded. "She's been my only friend for months, even before we were dating," he admitted. "But now I have you and Lorenzo is back."

"Exactly," said Frank, cupping Antonio's cheeks and kissing the top of his head. "Unwillingly-single guys' weekend!" 

"Um, about that," Lorenzo interrupted, returning with his phone in his hand. "I just got a text from Stephanie. Apparently all it took was one week for Joe to decide that he wants her on that one commercial after all. She's on the train right now. Joe offered to put her up in a hotel, but she said she'd rather stay here with me."

"Hey, congratulations!" Frank bounded off the couch and clapped Lorenzo on the back. "So it's one not-single, one unwillingly-single, and one not-bothered-about-it single guys' weekend, then." 

Lorenzo rolled his eyes. "Yeah, that's much catchier." 

Antonio chuckled nervously, draining the last of his coconut water. At least he still had Frank.


	10. Chapter 10

Rosenberg and Stephanie were already bickering by the time Antonio arrived in the upstairs lobby. He pulled a tight smile when Stephanie broke away to greet him, pretending not to see Rosenberg's outstretched hand. "Antonio, you'll agree with me!" Stephanie said, earning a dramatic eyeroll from Rosenberg.

"Maybe," Antonio replied cautiously. Stephanie had arrived at Lorenzo's apartment Saturday afternoon with a couple of suitcases and her unsinkable cheer, to Antonio's initial dismay. She had been quick to assess the situation, however, and by the end of the night he had seen a side of her that never came out at work. Lorenzo had folded his couch out into a bed to accommodate the four of them and their second round of takeout while they all sprawled across each other and made fun of a Hallmark movie. To Antonio's surprise, it was bubbly, wide-eyed Stephanie who had come up with the most cutting quips.

"You see, we're presenting my commercial idea to Joe, and Rosenberg thinks-"

"Rosenberg knows!" interrupted the accountant. "You can't pin the success of car sales on some doe-eyed boy who only appeals to kids! Children don't buy cars! It's an outrage!"

"Mr. Rosenberg, I don't agree at all, I think-"

"I tell you it's an outrage! You can be so annoying, Stephanie, seriously. Can you imagine a bunch of teenagers rushing down to the local dealership on their- on their skateboards? 'Oh'," he sighed, putting on a breathy falsetto, "'oh, I'm just a young girl, but I want a Kia! Oh, oh, oh oh!'"

Antonio bit back a smile, crossing his arms tightly over his chest. Had Rosenberg ever seen a teenage girl before? He caught Stephanie's eye had to turn away before he accidentally grinned, pretending to inspect a potted plant on Joe's assistant's desk. Rosenberg had the strange habit of puffing himself up and ranting when he was passionate about something, but if anyone gave in to the temptation to laugh Rosenberg would turn on them. Luckily, Antonio was usually good at keeping his expression blank.

Rosenberg's little performance was interrupted by Joe's assistant Margie. She tucked a pen behind her ear and pulled open the door to the corner office, informing them that Joe was ready to hear their proposal. A slightly-disheveled temp slipped out into the lobby, eliciting a scandalized gasp from Rosenberg. Even Stephanie shot the new girl a pitying glance as they passed her and filed in to face Joe. No one dared chastise the CEO to his face, but it was common knowledge throughout the company that the turnover rate for temps and executive assistants was a good deal higher than most places. Margie held the record at four months, as it had apparently escaped the hiring committee's notice that she was in a committed relationship with a woman. Fortunately for everyone involved, she was very good at her job.

The room that was now Joe's office had once been a conference room, but Joe had objected to his office being the same size as everyone else's and hasty changes had been made. At one side of the room sprawled his enormous desk and two uneasy chairs set to a significantly lower height than Joe's. On the far side was a ridiculous old-fashioned settee upholstered in patterned pastel brocade. This was where Joe was perched, sitting up on the arm with his shoes on the seat.

"Gentlemen," Joe said, extending his arms in welcome but not bothering to stand. "I'm listening."

Stephanie cleared her throat.

"Sir, you seem to have forgotten that Stephanie-" Rosenberg began.

"Stephanie!" Joe said. "Yes, sorry about that! Of course. Gentlemen and lady--go on with your proposal." 

"Well, Stephanie has put together a script for a commercial for the new Kia Seraglio," said Rosenberg, practically shoving Stephanie aside in his eagerness to hold the CEO's attention. Antonio drifted toward the unoccupied desk, picking up a photo of Joe's wife and kids. It was best to stay out of Rosenberg's way when he was vying for the boss's favor.

"Seraglio?" Joe scoffed. "That's a funny name."

Antonio resisted the urge to tell them what it meant in Italian. Their firm was responsible for putting out the ad, not for naming Kia's newest line of SUVs.

"Sir, my commercial would make the viewer feel-"

"Who did you have in mind to do the jingle?" Joe interrupted.

"Well," said Stephanie, shooting a glance in Antonio's direction, "I was thinking of getting Wolfgang Mozart and the Divine Libertines."

The framed picture slipped out of Antonio's hand. He caught it before it hit the floor and replaced it gently on the desk, clearing his throat. Fortunately, the others didn't seem to notice his momentary lapse in composure.

"It's true that the Divine Libertines have a younger audience, but everyone is always talking about them. Wherever you go, it's 'Divine Libertines this, Wolfgang Mozart that'-"

"They're obnoxious!" Rosenberg blurted. "The only people who care about them are teenagers, and teenagers can't buy cars! Can you imagine one of their screaming fans making the decision to buy a car? A car?"

Joe flapped his hands at both of them, silencing Rosenberg immediately. He gestured in Antonio's direction. "Tell me, Antonio, what do you think?"

He inhaled slowly, trying to file away his own feelings about the lead singer of the Divine Libertines. Frank had told him over and over that Wolfgang Mozart was a better person than his reputation indicated. Anyway, it wasn't like Mozart had pushed him out of the door of the karaoke bar Thursday night and forced him to go home without Constance. It wasn't Mozart who had left condoms in Constance's bedroom, either.

Rosenberg and Stephanie were hovering at either side of Joe's couch like an angel and a devil in old cartoons, though it would have been hard to decide which was which. Rosenberg's fists were clenched like he expected Antonio to physically fight him; Stephanie was nodding almost imperceptibly, her round eyes fastened on Antonio's face.

"Obnoxious, maybe, but incredibly popular," Antonio said at last, choosing his words with care. "However, we can't ignore the fact that their target audience does skew young, and they've never done a commercial before."

"Gentlemen," Joe said again, abruptly standing. Antonio saw a muscle in Stephanie's jaw jump, but she didn't say anything. "I've made my decision. We'll use Mozart!"

Rosenberg opened his mouth to argue, but Joe cut him off.

"Rosenberg, will you make sure the budget works out?"

"Absolutely," he said, snapping to attention.

"I'm counting on you to hold them accountable, Senior Accountant!" Joe said, grinning broadly at his joke.

"Of course, sir."

"Excellent," said Joe, ushering them out of his office. "Now, pick an air date. There's a lot to do!"

The door closed, and the three of them were out in the lobby again. Margie looked up from her computer long enough to point at the bowl of peppermints on her desk in a gesture that would have been hospitable from anyone else. Stephanie took one happily, humming under her breath.

Rosenberg seemed to shake himself, looking around the lobby as though he didn't know how they had gotten there. "What just happened?"

"He chose Mozart," Stephanie sang out, grinning. She skipped over to them. "Joe chose Mozart!"

"Oh, shut up," grumbled Rosenberg. He stormed off to the elevators, stabbing at the down button repeatedly.

Stephanie winked at Antonio. "Watch this." She waited until Rosenberg was on the elevator and the doors were closing before calling, "He chose Mozart!"

Antonio couldn't help but grin when the doors closed and Rosenberg was swept away before he could retaliate. Stephanie was doubled over, laughing so hard she wasn't making noise anymore.

 

Over the next few weeks, Antonio fell into a routine that he had to admit wasn't disagreeable. Work was finally starting to pick up again, and his lunch hour was always filled with some combination of Frank, Lorenzo, and Stephanie. Some evenings he went home and watched TV with his cat until bedtime, but other times he and his group would make dinner plans. Frank got him into a couple more Divine Libertines gigs, though he was still careful to keep as much distance as possible between himself and the lead singer. As winter began to loom on the horizon, the air began to crisp and the parks began to clear. Stephanie introduced Lorenzo to Pokémon Go, and the two of them in turn dragged Frank and Antonio into it as well. Frank already had an old account and had revived it only to find that he was on the yellow team, putting him in direct opposition to Lorenzo and Stephanie who were both red. Whenever the other two were fretting over making their cartoon friends fight strangers at a gym, Frank contented himself to wander around with his phone in front of his nose looking for more creatures to capture. A few days after they badgered Antonio into downloading the app, he was presented with the option to choose a team: red like Lorenzo and Stephanie, yellow like his brother, or blue. He chose blue just to be contrary. Stephanie had pretended to be mortally offended when she noticed, but being on different teams didn't stop Antonio from trailing after Frank while he hunted imaginary monsters in the park. Antonio liked to give his own creatures unwieldy nicknames, like a three-headed ostrich thing he had named Cerberus. The first few weekends the four of them had congregated in a public space to play a kids' game on their phones, Antonio had been deeply embarrassed of his companions, but that had faded in time. In fact, sometimes Antonio would catch himself watching Lorenzo and Stephanie swearing as they launched an attack on some rival team, or watching Frank punch the air when some high-powered monster stayed in one of his Pokéballs, and he would realize he was smiling. He would realize that things were finally falling into place. If only...

If only Constance had not disappeared from his life as suddenly as she had become a vital part of it.

A few days after that fateful Thursday, Antonio had deleted his facebook page. He stopped just short of deleting the collection of photos he kept on his desktop; instead, he renamed the folder "Old Pictures" and moved it back into his Documents where it wouldn't constantly be in his line of vision. Sometimes as he was changing into his pajamas he would find himself staring hollowly at his oversized Divine Libertines t-shirt, or holding Catstance a little too tightly. It did no good to dwell, he told himself. Constance knew where he lived, knew where he worked, and knew when he always went to lunch. If she wanted to see him despite her mother's warning, she could have found him. But after the way he had sulked through the concert that Thursday night and left the bar without her, there was no doubt in Antonio's mind that Constance was as angry at him as her mother was. He had known from the beginning that it would only be a matter of time until he blew it with her, anyway. Constance had been a shaft of summer sunlight and Antonio was the human equivalent of a rain cloud. It was never going to work long-term.

If he was going to put himself into another romantic relationship, Antonio decided he needed the kind of bond that Lorenzo had with Stephanie. Sure, she was cheerful and silly the way Constance had been, but that was where the resemblance ended. When Stephanie had been a teenager trying to pass as a gay boy, her family had given her what little money they had put aside for her college and told her to get out of their house. She had stuffed a few of her favorite outfits into a gym bag and bought a bus ticket to Manhattan, carving out a life for herself a sliver at a time. On the surface Stephanie seemed like a sheltered ingenue, but there was a hardness to her that Antonio recognized even more quickly than Lorenzo had. She was a person who had struggled, fought, lost and gained absolutely everything, and still chose to go into each day with an unwavering smile.

Stephanie's idea to have the Divine Libertines star in her car commercial had actually predated their weekend at Lorenzo's house, but after befriending the guitarist she had been determined to see her concept come to life. More often than not, their group lunch dates turned into impromptu business meetings. Though Frank was excited about the script and the song the band was composing, it was obvious that he wasn't allowed to make any decisions without running them by Mozart first. Antonio usually kept his silence when the conversation turned to the commercial. Maybe losing Constance was his own fault, but it wouldn't have been as sudden if Mozart hadn't stumbled into her life the same night. 

By the middle of the second month, the commercial was beginning rehearsals and Frank would drop by Antonio's office whenever they took a break. Of course, he had immediately noticed that their last name was misspelled on the door and corrected it with a post-it note. Maybe Frank hadn't expected his little brother to grow up to have a nine-to-five job, but didn't try to hide his pride whenever he stepped into Antonio's office.

One Tuesday morning, Antonio arrived at work to find Stephanie waiting anxiously in the hallway, flicking the post-it note back and forth. "What's going on?" Antonio asked, unlocking his office door and holding it open for her.

"Rosenberg," Stephanie hissed, shooting a look over her shoulder. "He wants to audit our run-through today. Audit! A rehearsal!"

"That sounds like Rosenberg."

Stephanie closed his office door. "Antonio," she said, "the rehearsals aren't ready for him to come poking around! We're barely out of the brainstorming phase! Frank has been a sweetheart, obviously, but that Mozart is like a jumpy kid! He brings friends to meetings, he proposes rewrites at the last minute, he gets up and wanders off in the middle of conversations! I know the commercial will be good, maybe even a game-changer, but if Rosenberg shows up today and finds a reason to drag Joe into it at this stage-"

"I'll come," Antonio volunteered. "I might not be able to distract Rosenberg, but at least I'll be able to give a different report to Joe if he tries to sabotage you."

Stephanie threw her arms around Antonio's ribs, crushing him in an unexpected hug. "You're honestly a lifesaver," she gushed, remembering herself and releasing him as abruptly as she had embraced him, "even if you are Team Mystic."

The rehearsal was being held in the studio, another converted conference room that was used for mockups and demos when they weren't yet ready for a real recording studio. It looked close enough to the real thing, with a plexiglass barrier separating the producers from the musicians and layers of foam tacked to the walls for sound dampening. When Antonio was first hired, he had imagined that he might use the makeshift studio for his own music, but of course he had never gotten around to it. 

The studio was in a state of disarray when Antonio and Rosenberg arrived. Antonio spotted Frank perched on a stool, diligently tuning his guitar. He also recognized the bassist, who was in the middle of a heated phone conversation; the drummer, who was digging through a duffel bag of cords and wires; and Kaavya Kavalieri, who was sitting in the middle of the floor scrolling through facebook. Stephanie was darting back and forth, trying to implement a sound-check entirely by herself. The edges of the room seemed to be lined with clusters of burly roadies who, for the most part, weren't helping with setup at all.

After several minutes had gone by with no one acknowledging their presence, Rosenberg cleared his throat. "Well, this is boring. Isn't this boring, Tony?"

"Oh!" gasped Stephanie, hurrying out of the booth and into the control room where they were waiting. "You're early! Mr. Rosenberg, maybe you could come back in a few minutes? We're almost ready, but-"

"What's going on? The rehearsal hasn't started?" Rosenberg interrupted.

"Well, it has, but-"

"Is Mozart even here?" he demanded, gesturing widely. "Is Mozart not here?"

Stephanie looked around, apparently realizing for the first time that the lead singer was missing. "What?"

"Oh, get back to work, Stephanie!" he snapped. "Tony? A word?"

Antonio caught Stephanie's eye and nodded reassuringly before following Rosenberg back out into the hallway. Maybe Mozart was running a few minutes late, but it wasn't the fault of Stephanie or the project, and there was nothing Rosenberg could do about it. If the accountant had wanted to be fair, he would have given them enough time to get set up and run through their jingle once or twice before he arrived instead of showing up five minutes early. It wouldn't hold water with Joe at all.

"Honestly, Tony," Rosenberg was saying, "if Joe had listened to me in the first place, we wouldn't be dealing with any of this. We'd have a sensible, practical commercial, the budget wouldn't already have been blown, and- oh, for God's sake!"

They had rounded the corner and arrived at the elevator bank, where they found the missing lead singer with his arms wrapped around a lover. Mozart was immediately recognizable from his haircut, but he had his companion pressed against the recessed doors of the elevator and both of their faces were shielded from view. From their vantage point, Rosenberg and Antonio could see the back of Mozart's head, shapely bare arms wrapped around his shoulders, and a bare knee crooked by his undulating hips.

Rosenberg seemed to completely short out, which would have been amusing if Antonio hadn't been so embarrassed himself. Mozart was fully clothed, of course, and his companion was probably just wearing a sleeveless dress, but the initial impression of it--well, it certainly wasn't something Antonio had expected to see at work. When the person pinned against the elevators let out a low, breathy moan, Antonio felt an unwelcome tightening of his trousers.

"Wolfgang!" shouted a voice from behind them.

The couple broke apart with a melodramatic groan from Mozart.

It was Kaavya Kavalieri who had come to find the missing singer, her cell phone still in her hand. She was a short, stocky woman in a red and gold sari who should not have been as imposing as she was in that moment. "Wolfgang, we've been ready for a while. Everyone is waiting."

"So? For once, Kaavya, you're the one waiting for me!" Mozart grinned. He seized the little singer's hand and spun her around, pecking her cheek before he let her go. "How does it feel?"

Still fuming, Rosenberg followed Mozart and Kavalieri back into the studio. Antonio, meanwhile, was frozen where he stood. The owner of the bare arm had stepped away from the elevator bank once Mozart was gone. Her golden hair, strapless lavender dress, and porcelain complexion were unmistakable: Mozart's girlfriend was Constance Weber.

Antonio felt hollow suddenly, as though he had plunged his head underwater and was trying to understand the words of someone on the surface. Constance had spotted him right away and the color was rising in her cheeks. What was he supposed to say? Should he scold her for avoiding him for months? Apologize for leaving her at the bar that night and leaving his briefcase on her bed? Ask her how she'd been?

After a long moment, Constance dropped her gaze. She snatched up her purse from the floor and used her knuckles to hit the elevator button. Antonio took a tiny step forward, thinking for a strange moment that she might not even remember him. "Constance?"

She smashed the elevator button repeatedly, shooting a withering glare in his direction.

"Constance, I-"

"I hope you're happy," she snapped. "Goodbye, Antonio." The elevator arrived, and Constance was gone.

Antonio was still for a long moment, a rushing noise filling his ears. He took a long, slow breath and put a hand against the wall to steady himself. She hated him. He had left the bar without her that night, and she hated him for it. He hadn't trusted her, and he had lost her.

He drifted back into the studio. The Divine Libertines were ready with their instruments, but Stephanie and Rosenberg were bickering in the control room. It seemed like everyone turned to face him when he arrived. Antonio avoided Stephanie's pleading look. "Mr. Mozart," he said, "Mr. Rosenberg and myself were sent here by the CEO himself to keep an eye on your progress. Based on what I've seen, he won't be happy with the result."

Mozart fixed his glittery stare on Antonio, seeming to look through him rather than at him. He leaned into his microphone. "And how can you pass judgement on our work when you haven't even heard the first note?" he smirked.

"Antonio-" Stephanie whispered.

"Oh, it's all about notes with you kids, isn't it? Notes, likes, tweets, reblogs! Well I've heard all about you and your notes!" Rosenberg began. "Can you buy a car with notes? Can you trade a selfie for a paycheck? Hm? Hm? Don't make me laugh! All you have are notes and- and retweets!"

"All we have are retweets?" Mozart repeated incredulously. The bassist stifled a giggle. "Who are you to pass judgement on us and our fans? Some suit at an advertising agency! How many people read your tweets, Mr. Rosenberg?"

Even Frank was trying not to laugh. Rosenberg, of course, was trembling with fury. "This is an outrage and I won't stand for it any longer!" he hissed. "Come on, Tony."

Antonio stayed where he was and watched Rosenberg sweep out of the room, grumbling to himself all the way. As soon as the door was closed, the band dissolved into hysterics. Stephanie approached Antonio, but he couldn't bring himself to meet her eye. When she tried to touch his arm, Antonio jerked away. With a final desperate glance over her shoulder at the band, Stephanie hurried out of the room after Rosenberg.

Members of the band were still chuckling, muttering to each other no doubt about Rosenberg and his fellow 'suits' at the advertising agency. Antonio approached the glass and pretended to laugh along with them until they all fell silent. "Bravo, buddy, bravo," he said, seething in his own indignation. "You really showed him, didn't you? I sure hope your commercial is as memorable as the scene you just made."

"Antonio," Frank protested, "come on, man."

Mozart looked back at his guitarist, then at Antonio, recognition dawning in his expression. Antonio spun on his heel and made for the door.

"Wait," Mozart called, hurrying after him. "Wait, Antonio. Antonio Salieri," he said, putting on a slight Italian accent. 

Antonio hesitated. There was something unsettling about hearing Wolfgang Mozart of the Divine Libertines say his name.

Mozart stationed himself between Antonio and the door. "I've seen you before with Frank. You're a fan of ours, apparently?"

"Apparently," Antonio gritted.

"Then stay for a little while. Listen to the new song." He jerked his head toward the seats near the glass. "Please?"

With a long, slow sigh, Antonio settled himself into one of the stools in the control room as Mozart returned to his band. He could feel his heartbeat reverberating through his limbs like a drumbeat. The corners of his vision were dark. Every time he blinked, he saw Constance again as she stood at the elevators and glared at him, lip curling, eyes flashing. The nagging fears that had dragged at him for these past few months had turned out to be true. Constance was angry at him. Constance hated him.

The drummer and the bassist were still smirking, but Kavalieri was browsing her facebook again. Antonio refused to look over at Frank. He could tell was watching him. He was in no mood to justify his tantrum to his brother, or to explain just how wrong he had been about his buddy Wolfgang. 

"From the top!" Mozart was saying, his back to the glass. Antonio found himself staring at his ass, remembering the way he had been grinding his hips against Constance over by the elevators. So she was definitely sleeping with him. He thought of the picture she had sent him the night she had been home alone, the image of her in the bathtub with an arm covering her bare breasts. Wolfgang Mozart had seen the rest of her, had touched her, kissed her... He shifted in his seat.

And then the song started. Kavalieri provided the opening notes, a soaring soprano that seemed too massive to come from her little frame. As her voice began to trail away, the first loud, deep notes rang out, rattling the plexiglass divider. Antonio gripped the edge of the counter, trying to slow his breathing. The music reverberated in his bones; he couldn't resist closing his eyes and letting himself sink into it. A strange mix of emotions bubbled through him, both his hurt at the way Constance had looked at him and his embarrassment at the way he had behaved in front of Stephanie and Frank. He shuddered when the next stroke of the bass seemed to pierce him like a knife. His heart rate was rising, making it impossible for him to keep his breathing even.

The song was good. God, it was so good it almost hurt. Sitting this close, the only person in the audience, the only person witnessing this performance: it was like staring directly into the sun. His racing thoughts began to blur. Constance's golden hair, her flashing eyes, her curling lip; Constance's head thrown back, Mozart's lips grazing her skin, his fingers sliding inside her; the strum of Frank's guitar, the crash of the cymbals, Mozart's lined eyes meeting Antonio's. The song ended at last, and as the weight of it lifted Antonio realized that he was completely hard.

From the other side of the glass, Mozart held his gaze. "Well, Tony? Are we nothing but retweets?"

Antonio's lips parted, but it took him a moment to find his voice. "Mozart-" he began, a little more breathily than he intended. He rose, making sure that his erection was hidden by the computer monitor, and steadied himself. "Here's my advice," Antonio began again, "let me and my fellow 'suits' do our jobs, stay on your side of the glass, and you and I won't have a problem." He pivoted and left the band in the studio, making a beeline for the nearest restroom.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for suicidal idealization and mentions of self-harm in this chapter sorry folks but he gotta earn them emo bangs... also I think I accidentally changed Stephanie's job or something? idk it's been literal years since I started this story

Antonio slammed his shoulder into the door of his apartment to open it, still trying to catch his breath from charging up the stairs instead of waiting for the freight elevator. He hurled his work laptop onto the bed, which startled Catstance and sent her skittering to the other side of the apartment. She shot him a stern look and padded into the bathroom as though that had been her intent all along.

Antonio sank back against the door, unwilling to regulate his breathing and calm himself. Constance hated him, so his plan was to be a dick to Frank and Stephanie and make them hate him too? Great. Brilliant. That was exactly the bullshit behavior that made Constance hate him in the first place. At this rate, he was going to die alone in this apartment and no one would think to look for him until Catstance had already started eating his corpse.

He let out a long exhale, the air hissing slowly between his teeth. Well, he had gotten along this far without depending on a clique or a girlfriend, hadn't he?

He watched Catstance emerge from the bathroom and leap onto the window perch he had installed for her. It must be nice to be a cat, Antonio thought. The most dramatic thing that could happen in Catstance's day would be for a pigeon to land on the air conditioner.

He went into the bathroom, pausing for a long time in front of the mirror. Well, maybe if he didn't look like such a tramp she wouldn't hate him so much. Antonio raked his hair away from his face. When he had first met Constance, it had been pretty short but for the side-swept bangs that he constantly had to brush out of his eyes. That had been months ago, at Joe's birthday party. It must have been more than a year since Antonio had last been to the barber; his hair covered his ears now. Of course, the bangs had gotten him into the habit of gelling his hair back in the morning to keep it out of his eyes, so he hadn't realized how much it had grown in all this time. He smoothed the sides back with both hands and discovered that he could just make a tiny ponytail at the nape of his neck. Maybe Constance had taken one look at him and thought he looked like a hobo with all this hair. It looked like he had put on some weight, too. Antonio locked eyes with his reflection and scowled at it. "You idiot," he muttered. If he were a character in a movie, he would have punched the mirror right now and shattered it, fracturing the image of himself. Instead, he trudged back to his bed and opened his work laptop. He had used his lunch hour to take the PATH train back to Jersey so he could work from home that afternoon. After the spectacle he had caused in the studio, he wasn't willing to face Stephanie again today. Maybe it would be easier if he never had to face her again.

As soon as he booted up his work laptop, Antonio found that she had sent him an email: "Are you ok?" was typed into the subject line with nothing in the body. He hated it when people did that. Antonio hit reply and stared at the blank template for a while before deleting it instead. He had always been a dick to Stephanie, anyway. Maybe today would finally teach her to stop forgiving him.

There were no customer emails in his inbox and he couldn't find anything on TV. Antonio laid back across his bed. He tried closing his eyes, but when he did the image of Constance's curled lip and dark glare waited for him. Then when he opened his eyes he saw Stephanie's frantic expression and Frank's furrowed brow against the blank ceiling.

Antonio sat up so quickly that Catstance made an inquisitive noise that was half-purr. He tapped her nose before pulling off his dress shirt. Avoiding Stephanie wasn't the only benefit to working from home, he reminded himself, shedding his trousers and changing into pajamas. He left his clothes bunched in the middle of the floor before crawling onto the bed again.

Still no emails. Antonio laid back once more, and this time he let the image of Constance resurface. Why had it hit him so hard? He had been telling himself for months that she must hate him. Apparently he had been stupid enough to hold out some hope that it wasn't true.

Or maybe it was because throughout all the hours they had spent together during lunches, weekends, and that heady night she had passed sleeping next to him, he had never seen Constance stare at anything as coldly as she had stared at him that morning by the elevators. The realization sunk into him like a chill. Antonio tried to exhale slowly again, but his breath left him in a long shudder. "Shit," he muttered, grinding his palms into his eyelids. When he took his hands away, colors seemed to bloom across the plain ceiling.

Antonio slid this thumb down his wrist, tracing the lengths of his old scars. How long had it been since the last time he considered hurting himself? It was before Constance, certainly. Maybe it was the night after his fight with Lorenzo. The events of today seemed worse. Antonio sat up again, casting a long stare toward the cabinet above his refrigerator. The old pencil box must still be there with his stash of blades inside. He hadn't given it much thought in the past year or so.

He rolled onto his stomach, resting his forehead on his crossed arms. He wanted to tell himself that she wasn't worth it, that he had been doing just fine without her. Then again, if all it took was a dirty look from Constance for Antonio to turn around and sabotage everything, maybe that meant he didn't deserve any of it. Stephanie, Lorenzo, even Frank--now they would know what he was really like. He was petty, emotional, and deeply untrustworthy. He was disloyal. He was a liar.

The sudden weight of Catstance stepping onto his lower back took Antonio by surprise. She wasn't a kitten anymore, and though she was smaller and scrappier than most cats, her feet still felt a lot pointier than they looked. She walked gingerly up to his shoulder blades, her rattly purr switched on suddenly, then settled right in the middle of his back. He sighed, slowly so as to not disturb her. Now he couldn't go get the pencil box from the cabinet above the fridge. Not yet, anyway. He slid one arm out from under his head and tried to reach the cat, succeeding only in grabbing one of her feet. "Would you mind if I changed your name?" he asked, his voice muffled by the bedspread.

Catstance yanked her foot away, but her purr grew even louder for a few beats.

Antonio crossed his arms under his head again, trying not to jostle Catstance too much. He could just see his laptop screen from here: the inbox was still empty, of course. He closed his eyes. If something happened to Antonio, would Frank take care of his cat? He had a dog and a cat already. What if they didn't get along with her? He imagined Frank delivering the cat back to Constance in a little carrier, the two of them meeting on the sidewalk out front of the bar. Maybe Wolfgang Mozart would be there, an arm slung possessively around Constance's shoulders. How would she react? Maybe she would refuse to take the cat back until Frank admitted that Antonio had killed himself. What would Constance do then? Would she feel guilty? Would she regret disappearing from his life the way she had? Or would she be relieved to be rid of him?

He sighed again, feeling the cat's weight roll slightly on his back as he exhaled. He closed his eyes. With his arms crossed beneath his forehead, the lights of the room were blocked out and his breath made the air seem hot. Was it possible to suffocate this way? He had seen people on TV dramas commit murder by holding a pillow over someone's face, but had never heard of anyone dying from lying face-down on their stomachs. Maybe it had been a plot point in the Elephant Man; he wasn't sure. It was probably possible to keep his own face in bathwater long enough to drown, if it came down to it. There was also something about an oven, but if it involved blowing out the pilot light he didn't want to risk an explosion that might hurt the neighbors or Catstance. Maybe he could just lie here until he starved to death.  There was something soothing about breathing this hot, stifled air with his nose and mouth pressed against his quilt.

Antonio didn't realize he had fallen asleep until someone started pounding on his apartment door and Catstance launched herself off of him, stabbing him with her back feet as she jumped. He grunted in surprise, rubbing his face and discovering that he had actually drooled a little on his comforter. He scrubbed his face with his palms and smoothed his hair, mumbling, "Hang on!" as he staggered toward the door. His visitor kept banging frantically at it even while Antonio was audibly drawing the latch. As soon as the door was open Frank rushed into the apartment and wrapped Antonio into a tight hug.

"What-?"

"Don't run away like that! Do you know how worried we've been?"

"What do you-?"

"Did you turn off your phone?"

"My phone? I don't think so. Is it dead?"

Frank released him from the hug only to cup Antonio's face in his hands and study him. "Are you still upset? It's fine, Antonio. Your buddy Rosenberg tried to run to the CEO with some story about the rehearsals being a waste of time, but he was in a meeting and the receptionist wouldn't let him in. Everything's just fine."

Antonio pulled away, closing the apartment door. He started to latch it but changed his mind. So Frank wasn't even angry at him for making a scene at the rehearsal? He didn't care that his little brother had mouthed off to Wolfgang Mozart, lead singer of the Divine Libertines and effectively Frank's boss?  

Somehow, knowing that Frank had forgiven him made Antonio angry.  "Did you talk to your buddy Mozart?" he snapped.

Frank's dimple disappeared as it always did when Antonio went down this line of conversation.  "You know what?  Wolfgang actually did ask me if you were okay after the rehearsal.  He isn't the person everyone thinks he is, and I wish you would stop acting like-"

"So he didn't mention the little scene he caused in the hallway?  He didn't tell you why he was late this morning?"

"Okay, I'll bite.  What happened in the hallway, Antonio?"

"Why don't you ask Rosenberg?  He was there!  Or Kavalieri?  Because as far as any of us are concerned, he's exactly the person everyone thinks he is!"

"What are you talking about?"

"Constance!" Antonio blurted, his voice breaking around her name.  "I told you all along that he took her from me.  We were on a date when they met!  We were on a date!  She knew that I worked in that building!  And then for everyone to see the two of them-" he broke off, unwilling to put it into words.

The way Frank was staring at Antonio, he looked like someone who was having to mentally translate everything he heard into his native language.  "Wolfgang was with Constance today?" he finally asked.

"She knew that was my office," Antonio repeated, a new realization taking hold.  "They did it on purpose."

"But that isn't Wolfgang," mumbled Frank.  He reached into his pocket.  "I'll text him."

Antonio grabbed his brother's wrist, squeezing a little tighter than necessary.  

Frank released his phone.  "Okay, kid.  I'm sorry.  I'll stay out of it."

"Never," Antonio said levelly, still gripping Frank's arm, "never mention my name to Wolfgang Mozart again.  I'm done with both of them."

 

 

 

By the end of the following week, a mock-up was ready to be presented to the Kia marketing team to see if they wanted to buy Stephanie's Seraglio commercial.  The atmosphere in the office was particularly bright all morning; even Joe was seen sauntering through the grid of customer service cubicles whistling to himself at several points in the day.  Antonio kept his office door closed until lunch, at which point he found the quickest path to the kitchen blocked by Joe and one of the cute temps deep in conversation.  Rather than risk engaging either of them, Antonio took the long route through accounting.  He slowed as he neared Rosenberg's office: the door was open, and he could hear the senior accountant's voice coming from inside.  If he was on a call, Antonio could probably sneak by without getting roped into whatever gossip Rosenberg was dealing in that day. But would he be wiser to slow his pace so that his footsteps would be softer or to speed up and minimize his visibility?

While he was hesitating, he clearly heard Rosenberg say his name.  Antonio froze, but it became apparent that he was still talking on the phone and hadn't spotted Antonio at all.  In spite of himself, Antonio lingered, straining to hear the conversation.

"-right, they're presenting the mock-up this afternoon and the whole office is waiting to see what will come of it like it's the event of the year!" Rosenberg was saying.  "And you know that jackass Salieri will be like-" here, Rosenberg dropped his voice to a measured, low tone- "'Oh, you'll see, Mr. Rosenberg, the music will be too overpowering, the commercial will be off-message, and everything will fall apart on its own!  You'll see!'  Well, what if it doesn't?  What then, jackass?"

Antonio bit back a laugh.  He glanced around the department: neither of the junior accountants had noticed him lurking outside their boss's office yet.

"No, no, I admit, the Divine Libertines have some good songs, of course they do!  There's the one about- no, no, not that one, that one's good too, but have you heard the one that comes after it?"

And to Antonio's utter shock, Rosenberg began singing one of the songs from the album the Divine Libertines had released a year ago word-for-word.  It wasn't one of the popular tracks that was always on the radio, either.  There was no way he had learned this song without buying the album himself.

When his little recital had ended, Rosenberg seemed to realize notice the time: "Listen, it's time to go to lunch, and you know what I've got to do," he told the caller.  "Of course.  No, it's no trouble at all.  It'll be worth it to save our reputation, anyway.  Talk to you soon."

Antonio took another step forward and leaned casually against the door frame, arms crossed.  The accountant was rummaging through a drawer, only the bald spot at the top of his head visible from the other side of his desk.  When Antonio cleared his throat, Rosenberg yelped in surprise and nearly tumbled right off his chair.  "Oh!" he cried, "Tony!  Have you, uh, have you been waiting there long?" he stammered.

"Not really.  This jackass was just heading out for lunch and stopped to hear your little performance," Antonio said coolly, fighting to hide his amusement as Rosenberg's eyes bugged out.  "I didn't know you were such a big fan of the Divine Libertines."

"No, not at all, not at all!" insisted Rosenberg, leaping to his feet.  He rushed over to shut the office door behind Antonio.  "Not at all!" he said again.  "In fact, I was just complaining about this whole foolish business.  You know, Stephanie's team presents their mock-up this afternoon, and if the Kia team buys the commercial I'll look like an idiot for opposing it!"

"So you have a plan, I take it?"

He nodded fervently, leaning in and dropping his voice.  "I have a friend on the Kia marketing team who's willing to strike a deal," said Rosenberg.  "If I bring him two tickets to a Broadway show for this weekend when his mom is in town, he'll refuse to approve the commercial at the meeting this afternoon.  I'm on my way to the box office now."

"That might actually work," said Antonio.  He tried not to imagine the look on Stephanie's face if the commercial she had been pouring her heart into for so long ended up being rejected by Kia.  They had already sunk a lot of money into working with the Divine Libertines.  Worse, she had been taking the train back and forth between the New York and Philadelphia offices several times a week as she tried to oversee both her old role and her new one, staying with Lorenzo whenever she was in the city.  The poor thing would be an absolute wreck if Rosenberg sabotaged her commercial at this stage.

"And you told me to sit back and see what happened!" scoffed Rosenberg.  "Now, if you'll excuse me."

Antonio stepped aside, wondering if he should approach Joe now before it was too late.  Maybe if Rosenberg was called into a surprise meeting with the CEO, it would keep him from getting up to the theater and buying the tickets. "Which show does your friend want to see?"

"Oh, that famous one, you know.  Hamilton?"

"For this weekend?" Antonio asked.  "And you're going to the box office now?"

Rosenberg tapped his forehead with one finger.  "You see?  Nothing to worry about.  Enjoy your lunch, Tony."

Antonio shook his head as the accountant swept past.  "Good luck with that, Rosenberg."

 

 

 

The meeting had probably only been over for a few minutes when a text from Stephanie lit up the group chat: 'It's a hit!'

'Proud of you, babe! x' came from Lorenzo a moment later.

Antonio smirked at his phone.  So Rosenberg hadn't been able to find two Hamilton tickets for tomorrow night after all.  What a shock.

Another text from Lorenzo: 'Pokédrinks?'

Ever since the weather had turned too cold to meet in parks and hunt Pokémon, the group had taken to hanging out in coffee shops that happened to be adjacent to Pokéstops or gyms and bringing the game indoors.  Stephanie and Lorenzo would viciously turn the place Red and defend it all evening while Frank and Antonio nursed drinks with names that sounded as fake-Italian as the Kia Seraglio.

'We're having an after party!  Join!' came Stephanie's reply followed by an address.  According to google maps, it was only a couple stops north of the office on the E. He would have to drop by for a while.  Stephanie and Frank had been too busy with the commercial to come out to lunch all week, so it would be nice to see them again.  As soon as Rosenberg or Joe showed up, though, Antonio would probably announce that he had to get home to feed his cat and make a graceful exit.

He took the subway with Lorenzo, regaling him with the story of Rosenberg's attempt to sabotage the commercial on the way.  It didn't go over quite as well as he hoped, since Lorenzo's thoughts went to the slight against his girlfriend a lot faster than Antonio's had that afternoon.  Antonio still thought it was funny, anyway.

Google maps led them to a kitschy restaurant with a German name and relentless accordion music playing over the speakers.  Antonio dropped his forehead onto Lorenzo's shoulder and groaned when he saw that the waitstaff were dressed in cheap dirndls and lederhosen, some of them with plastic flower crowns pinned to their hair.

"This place better be one hell of a Pokéstop," Lorenzo muttered, checking the address Stephanie had provided again.

They found Stephanie in a back room with a few of the other people from marketing.  Based on the volume of her voice and the empty glasses clustered on the table, the party started some time ago.  Stephanie lurched to her feet when they arrived and threw one arm around Lorenzo's neck.  "Come drink to our lovely victory!" she said, pulling Antonio further into the room with her free hand.

Lorenzo kissed her forehead.  "Looks like it'll take us a little while to catch up to you."

Antonio spotted Frank on the far side of the table and made his way back to the empty seat at his brother's side.  There was an entire bottle of wine at this end of the room, but it didn't look like Frank had made much headway on it.  He started pouring Antonio a glass as soon as he saw him enter.

"Congrats," said Antonio as he dropped into the chair.  He wondered if Frank would enjoy the story of Rosenberg's Hamilton odyssey any more than Lorenzo had.  He held his tongue, worried that Frank would take offense as well.  Everyone had been going out of their way to avoid discussing the commercial in front of Antonio since his meltdown last week in the studio.

Frank slid the glass of red wine over to him.  "So, did you hear they're releasing a holiday Pikachu wearing one of those red Santa Claus hats?"

"Santa hat electric rat?" Antonio replied with a grin.

"Dude, you can't say things like that before you've even started drinking."

"Says the guy who calls Exeggcute 'The Breakfast Club'."

"Come on, that's a good joke!" protested Frank.  He finished his glass in one long sip and leaned in conspiratorially.  "What do you think Lorenzo and Stephanie are catching right now?"

Antonio looked up: on the other side of the room, Lorenzo had taken a seat and Stephanie was straddling his lap.  Her long, brown hair had come loose and was curtaining their faces, but they still looked like a pair of horny teenagers at a movie theater.

Antonio snorted into his drink.  "We've been here ten minutes!  I get that Stephanie's drunk, but Lorenzo-?"

"Drunk on love," Frank crooned.

"On power," said Antonio.  "She was already the golden child at work.  She's unstoppable now.  She could probably bang Lorenzo on the couch in Joe's office and nobody would say anything."

Frank cleared his throat, running two fingers around the rim of his glass.  "Isn't she going to have to go back to her job in the Philly office, though?"

They glanced over at their friends again; suddenly the desperate makeout session seemed bittersweet.  Antonio grabbed the wine bottle and refilled Frank's glass just to give himself something to focus on.  Philadelphia was only an hour and a half away by train, and Stephanie's new job had come with a huge raise.  She and Lorenzo could still see each other on the weekends.  But the idea of their lunch group being reduced to three weighed on his mind.  Without Stephanie, who would lead them on Pokémon hunts or excitedly tell them what obscure national holiday it was every day?

Frank had been fiddling with his phone when he suddenly straightened up and dropped it onto the table.  "Um, Antonio?"

"What's wrong?"

He slid the phone over to him and pointed at the text he'd just received.  It was a group chat between the members of the Divine Libertines.  Antonio clenched his jaw when he saw the most recent text from Wolfgang Mozart: 'Just found a parking spot! Be there in a minute!'

Antonio's eyes darted toward the door.  Wolfgang Mozart was coming here?  If he was already parked, it would be impossible to leave without passing him.

"I'm sorry, Antonio.  I didn't know he was coming too or I would have warned you."

Antonio nodded, still scanning the portion of the bar that was visible from the back room.  The bartender was a broad-shouldered man in a frilly white blouse who kept sneaking sips of something from an old-fashioned beer stein.  Behind him was a door that probably led to the kitchen.  Could a customer go through there?  He was afraid to ask.

"You want me to leave with you?" Frank asked.

Antonio got to his feet, tugging his sweater down anxiously.  "I'll just go to the bathroom," he muttered.  After Mozart joined the party in the back room, maybe Antonio would be able to slip out from there unnoticed.

It was too late: before Antonio had even pushed in his chair the singer bounded through the door.  He threw out both arms and beamed at the assembly like they were fans at one of his concerts.  "Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, at your service!"

Antonio dropped back into his seat, ducking his head to hide the flush that must be spreading over his cheeks.  Dammit.

One of the kids from marketing knocked over their glass when Mozart appeared, soaking Lorenzo and Stephanie.  The couple broke apart (with a yelp from Stephanie) and the frantic kid scurried off in search of napkins.  They were lucky they worked for Stephanie and not someone like Rosenberg, Antonio thought.  Was spilling water on your boss at an after-hours party a fireable offense?  Stephanie excused herself to the restroom, smoothing her hair back into the red ribbon Lorenzo had removed as she left.  There was a large wet spot spreading across the back of her blazer where the water had hit her, but Lorenzo's clothes were dry.  He kept his seat, gingerly crossing his long legs and wiping Stephanie's lipstick off his face with the back of one hand.

The other people from marketing had Mozart surrounded, their eyes and phone screens glowing as they prepared to ask for photos.  Now there was no way to get out of the back room without pushing through the little crowd, which would definitely catch Mozart's attention.  Maybe he wouldn't recognize Antonio?  After all, it had been more than a week since the incident at the studio.  How good was Mozart's facial recognition, anyway?  Antonio grimaced.  Well, he had picked Constance out of a screaming audience at Madison Square Garden after not having seen her for a decade.  Was his ex-girlfriend's kid sister more or less recognizable than his colleague's kid brother who had acted like an idiot in front of his entire band?

On the far side of the table, Lorenzo stood up, clearing his throat in the general direction of the crowd.  "Excuse me?  Could I talk to Mr. Mozart?"

The musician took one last picture before breaking free.  He grinned widely at Lorenzo and stuck out one hand.  "Wolfgang Mozart," he said, though he had already announced his name to the entire room once.

"Lorenzo Da Ponte," said Lorenzo shaking his hand, "I'm a marketing manager at Imperial Marketing & Advertising."

"Wow, do they only source marketing managers from Italy?" Wolfgang teased.  "Buonasera, Signor Da Ponte!"

Antonio let out his breath in a hiss.  So Mozart must have remembered his Italian-sounding name and his position at the company too.  Great.

Lorenzo pulled a tight smile that Antonio knew well.  They had both been teased about their names their entire lives; it was one of the things that had brought them together at school.  It was kind of rich coming from somebody named 'Wolfgang', though.

"I'm sure Stephanie has told you that she'll be transferring back to the Philadelphia office starting next week?"

Wolfgang appeared to nod and shrug at the same time.

"I'm taking over her projects.  If Kia needs anything further from us, you'll be working through me, so I wanted to introduce myself.  Sorry, I know it's not the best time."

"It's always a good time for music!" Mozart announced theatrically.  "I actually had a few ideas I wanted to discuss.  Have you heard about their new electric cars?"

Mozart dropped into a seat at the table, gesturing for Lorenzo to join him.  The kid who had spilled water was back, covering the puddle with paper napkins and shooting nervous glances in Mozart's direction.

Antonio eyed the distance between the backs of Lorenzo and Mozart's chairs and the wall.  Could he slip by unnoticed?  If he went around the other side of the table, would he be more or less likely to catch their attention?  Frank had offered to walk him out; maybe it would be best to take him up on it.  Hell, maybe he should whittle the stem of his wine glass into a shiv and dig a hole out beneath one of the floorboards.  He eyed the bartender out in the main room, who seemed a little less steady on his feet than he had been when they arrived.  Maybe Antonio should try getting staggeringly drunk himself, blacking out, and waking up on this bartender's couch tomorrow morning.  That had worked out so well for him before.  

He watched the bartender pour a patron a generous refill, draining his own wine glass and serving himself another.  "Who chose this place?" he asked Frank.

"Stephanie did.  Apparently she and Wolfgang have a running joke about being German twins?"

"German twins?"

Frank shrugged.  "Wolfgang's middle name is Amadeus-"

"Pretentious. Go on."

"-and Stephanie's last name is Gottlieb.  They both translate to the same thing I guess, so... German twins."

Antonio rolled his eyes, taking a long sip of wine.  "Gottlieb, Da Ponte, and the Salieri boys... when Stephanie goes back to Philly, we need to replace her with someone named Jane Smith."

He ended up staying at the party longer than he expected he would even before Mozart had arrived.  The singer spent the rest of the evening basking in the adoration of the flustered junior marketing team, leaving Antonio and his friends free to catch up at the back of the table.  The bar had turned out to be a level 8 Instinct gym, which Stephanie and Lorenzo had quickly begun battling while Frank discreetly tried to defend it under the table.  Once or twice, Antonio had looked up and caught Mozart staring at him over someone's shoulder, but by then he had had enough to drink that his dislike for the lead singer of his favorite band was less important than spending some extra time with his clique.

It was so late that Antonio was getting drowsy when Stephanie and Lorenzo, who had successfully taken over the gym and celebrated by making out for half an hour, decided it was probably time to relocate the rest of their evening to Lorenzo's place.  They hugged Antonio and Frank before leaving hand-in-hand.  Antonio had switched to water about the time that Lorenzo had switched to Stephanie's spit, so his head was clearing and he was ready to make his way to the PATH himself.  Catstance should have been fed two hours ago and was probably tearing his apartment to shreds.  Frank decided to go to the bathroom before they left.  While he was waiting, Antonio thumbed through his wallet in search of a cash tip he could leave the waiter who had been bringing them drinks all night.  Sure, Stephanie had already paid for the back room and open bar, and had probably included a generous tip as well, but he never felt right if he wasn't contributing his own twenty percent.  He found a ten and a five and was positioning them under the empty wine bottle when a voice by his ear said, "Antonio, right?"

Antonio jolted so badly he nearly knocked over the bottle.  As soon as Frank was out of the room, Wolfgang Mozart had slipped into the empty seat at his side.

The musician was studying him inquisitively, his brown eyes ringed with their customary copper eyeshadow.  Why was he sitting so close?

Antonio's pulse and mind were racing.  Why had he approached him?  Had Frank said something since the incident in the studio?  Had Constance said something?  Was he going to say something about Constance?  Antonio shot a quick glance at the wine bottle, suddenly furious that it was already empty.  "Mozart?" he finally answered, unsure what his own tone should be.

"Hey, aren't you dating that other Italian guy?  Lorenzo?"

"What?" Antonio blurted.

Mozart shrugged.  "I thought you two were dating."

"He- he's been with Stephanie for almost a year," Antonio heard himself say.  Why was he telling the lead singer of the Divine Libertines about his best friend's love life right now?  What was happening here?

For some reason, this information seemed absolutely baffling to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.  He cocked his head to one side, brow furrowed.  He looked like he was trying to do a math problem in his head.  Across the table, members of the junior marketing team were pretending to play on their phones or talk to each other, but Antonio could feel their eyes on him and Mozart.  Where was Frank?

"You were never with him?" Mozart persisted.

Antonio finally snapped.  "No!  What business is it of yours?"

At that, Mozart simply shrugged.  "Just wondering," he said.  He got to his feet and started fishing around in his pocket for his phone as he made his way back to the other side of the table.  "See you later, Antonio."

By the time Frank returned from the bathroom, Mozart was flirting and preening in front of the junior marketing team like nothing had happened.  Antonio collected his briefcase and stood by the door while Frank bid his boss goodbye with a one-armed hug, but quickly turned away when Mozart winked at him over Frank's shoulder.


	12. Chapter 12

On Sunday, Antonio was frankly surprised when Stephanie invited him and Frank to join her at Lorenzo's place. He would have expected the two of them to want to spend the rest of the weekend together, but apparently they had discovered an obscure reality show on Netflix that was so good that it called for another takeout day on Lorenzo's couch. That was how he found himself sprawled across his friends with one leg draped over Lorenzo's and his head in Frank's lap, nearly choking on his pizza whenever Stephanie crowed about which of the employees on Fish Tank Kings must be screwing each other.

The thought that this might be their last weekend together was hard to bat away.  Stephanie would be at Lorenzo's all the time, surely.  And if the two of them had wanted the Salieri boys' company today, that wouldn't change once Stephanie was only in town on the weekends... would it?  He really didn't want to go back to those long, lonely weekends he used to spend stretched out on his empty bed watching television and eating Kraft mac and cheese straight out of the pot.  Of course, he would still have Frank, and he and Lorenzo had been friends since they were kids.  It was Stephanie who had galvanized them into a group, though.  She was always blowing up the group chat with plans and gossip.  How much was going to change once she was based in Philadelphia?  Who would find weird shows like Fish Tank Kings and bring the group together to marathon them?

On the screen, Francis the Fish Geek was staring nervously at some rich woman who was complaining about having to change the filter on her tank even though she only had a betta.  "Enzo," Antonio asked, tapping his foot against Lorenzo's, "you had a fish tank in high school, didn't you?"

"Sure did."

Stephanie shifted at his other side. "Really?"

"I wanted a dog but Dad said there were already too many dirty feet running around on his floors, so I wound up with the goldfish instead.  No feet."

"You loved that goldfish," Antonio said. "What was its name again?"

"Do you mean Nancy Drew or Nancette Drew? They each died after like a year."

"So paternal," Antonio teased.

"You named your fish after Nancy Drew?"

"Wait, Francis the Fish Geek said goldfish are supposed to live like twenty years," Frank pointed out, combing his fingers absentmindedly through Antonio's hair.

"Maybe not when the person responsible for keeping them alive is a high schooler who's still obsessed with Nancy Drew," said Antonio.

Lorenzo unwound one arm from Stephanie's waist and swatted at Antonio. "You always try to embarrass me in front of Steph. I don't know why I hang out with you."

Antonio balled up his napkin and lobbed it at him. "Because you'd be lost without me."

"True," Lorenzo ceded.

Frank held up the remote. "Want me to pause the episode so you two can finish flirting?"

"If you do, you and I won't have anything to watch but them," Stephanie pointed out.  "Maybe just put on the subtitles so we'll know what's going on if they start making out." 

"I'm not flirting," Antonio grumbled, lifting his foot off Lorenzo's. The last thing he needed was for things to get awkward between him and his best friend again. The incident at the food cart hadn't crossed his mind in months.

"I'm not threatened, don't worry," joked Stephanie, reaching across Lorenzo to pat Antonio's arm. "You know, I did have someone ask me if you two were a couple, though."

Antonio sat up so quickly that his forehead narrowly missed cracking into Frank's chin. "What?"

"Yeah, at rehearsal last week.  I don't remember what brought it up."

On one side of the couch, Lorenzo was shaking his head and pretending to be offended while Stephanie giggled at him.  On the other, Frank was fiddling with the remote, switching the language back and forth on Fish Tank Kings.  Antonio sat motionless between them, his thoughts racing.

It had to have been Mozart.  It was the same question, a week earlier than he had asked Antonio himself.  Friday night, Antonio could have brushed it off as a random question that had struck the singer and he had needed to have answered right there, but this?  He had asked Stephanie a week ago, and, unsatisfied with her response, had come to Antonio with it at the bar.  In fact, he had waited until Frank was in the bathroom before he approached him at all.  But what would have even given him the idea?

Constance.  It had to have something to do with Constance.  She was the only person Antonio had ever told about what had happened between him and Lorenzo last year.  And now that Constance was with Mozart, she was the obvious link between Mozart and Antonio's personal life.  But what did it matter?  The incident at the food cart had been ages ago!  What if he wasn't asking on behalf of Constance, though?  What if Mozart had some kind of weird kink and images of Antonio and Lorenzo together were- were arousing to him?  Or maybe it was professional curiosity.  Maybe he wasn't sure about working with Lorenzo after Stephanie left if he thought Lorenzo and Antonio were together.  Maybe he just didn't want their paths to cross any more than they had to.

That wouldn't explain him winking at Antonio Friday night, though.  That wouldn't explain him casually approaching him and asking if he was dating the guy who had spent the whole evening making out with Stephanie in front of everybody.

Stephanie's voice cut through his thoughts: "Frank, put it back in English!  Jose was definitely hitting on Francis.  Back up!"

Antonio startled back to the present, clearing his throat and collecting the balled-up napkin he had thrown at Lorenzo.  He went ahead and took everyone's empty plates into the kitchen while he was at it.  He tried to direct all his focus on the sink, on the sponge, on the dish soap, but it was almost like he could feel Wolfgang Mozart's glitter-lined eyes on him right there in Lorenzo's apartment.  Maybe this was what it felt like to go crazy.

Once the dishes were in the drying rack, he returned to the living room to find that his friends had paused Netflix and were chatting about Stephanie's role in the Philadelphia office.  Antonio resumed his seat in the middle of the couch, relieved at the change in topic.  He picked a few stray cat hairs off his sweater as he listened to Stephanie describing her new job.  Considering how many dark colors Antonio wore, it would have made a lot more sense to have a black cat than a gold one.  He hadn't had much choice in the matter, he reflected.

"You hearing this, kid?" Frank asked suddenly.

Antonio straightened up, wide-eyed.  "Some of it.  What?" 

"They knocked her up an entire tax bracket with that raise, gave her a corner office in Philadelphia, and then she basically sits there twiddling her thumbs all day."

"Catching Pokémon," said Stephanie.  "Texting Lorenzo.  I do get to set up meetings with all the suckers who are doing my old job, though.  Then I sit there and look critical while they present their current projects to me.  It's a blast."

"What's real estate like in Philadelphia?" Antonio asked.  "It's got to be better than it is here."

"She's got a huge place!" Lorenzo enthused.  "She's renting, obviously, but it's two stories with street access!  The building even has a parking garage in case she wants to buy a car."

"I'd have to get my license first."

"I hope we can see it sometime!  It sounds amazing," said Frank.

A significant look passed between Lorenzo and Stephanie.  Something about the sudden silence made Antonio clench his jaw, waiting.  When Lorenzo glanced at him out of the corner of his eye and then shook his head at Stephanie, his stomach dropped.  "What is it?"

"I asked Lorenzo to move in with me," Stephanie announced.

The words settled over Antonio like a chill.

"Not until after the Kia stuff is wrapped!" Lorenzo said quickly.  "We don't want to pass Frank and his band off to another manager right after they lose Steph."

Antonio looked around the little Queens apartment where he had passed so many weekends, not only during these recent months but before he had found Frank, before Lorenzo had started dating Stephanie.  "You're taking him with you?"

"Hey, we'll all see each other on the weekends!  We can alternate cities, or we can hang out at your place or Frank's.  We'll be here all the time!"

"That's great!" Frank was saying.  "I mean, we'll miss you at lunch, obviously, but..." he trailed off.  "Antonio, are you okay?  It won't be that different."

"Sure," hissed Antonio, "yeah, great!"  He sprang to his feet, the flush of indignation rising in his chest.  "Sure, because fuck me, right?  Fuck the job I got you, fuck all your friends and your family and everyone back in Jersey!"

"Antonio-"

"I'll go.  You probably need to pack."  Antonio grabbed his coat and scarf, jammed his feet into his shoes, and stormed out of the apartment.

He was in the lobby before Frank caught up to him, and then literally caught him in his arms when Antonio refused to stop.  He tried to twist free, but Frank wouldn't let go of his shoulders.  "Antonio!  Dude, come on!" his brother was saying, holding him firmly in place.

"Get off," snarled Antonio.  "What, they sent you to calm me down, did they?  They're up there rolling their eyes right now.  Well, let them!  They don't care!  Let me go!"

"Just stand still!" Frank shouted.

Antonio froze; he had never heard his brother raise his voice before.  Frank's dimple disappeared and reappeared as he ground his teeth, slowing his breathing to normal.  His grip on Antonio's shoulders was starting to hurt.  "Frank-?"

"Just shut up."

Antonio's heart sank.  This was it.  Stephanie was going to take Lorenzo to the Philadelphia office and Frank was finally going to tell Antonio that he was a handful, that he was too much work, that he wasn't worth all this.  Then it was back to his empty apartment, back to the hollow, prerecorded laughter of studio audiences and his sputtering radiator all weekend.  Back to lunches purchased at the food cart and eaten alone at his desk.  That was probably more suited to someone like Antonio, anyway.  It was really a credit to Frank that he had been able to go this long before he lost his temper with him.

"Dammit," Frank muttered, releasing Antonio's arms at last.  He raked both hands through his hair, exhaling in a long, slow hiss.

Antonio fiddled with one of the buttons on his coat.  "I'll go.  I'm sorry."

"Would you just stand still for a minute?  Can't you stick around and talk to us instead of stomping out in a huff for once in your life?" snapped Frank.

Antonio swallowed, his throat closing as tears rose in his eyes.  He stayed where he was, his gaze fastened on his brother.

After a long moment, Frank finally turned back to Antonio, cupping the back of his neck with one hand.  "Do you have any idea how much it kills me when you do this?"

"What?"

"Dammit, Antonio," he sighed, shaking him by the shoulder.

"I'm sorry.  I'm not-"

"Don't!  I don't want to hear it."

Antonio waited, hardly daring to breathe even though his heartbeat was pounding in his ears.  Frank's gaze was on the floor again; after a moment he realized he was blinking back tears of his own.  Was he trying to figure out how to tell Antonio that he had had enough?  He was probably remembering how easy and drama-free his life had been before he was constantly having to clean up his little brother's messes.  

Frank lifted his head at last, brow furrowed.  Antonio braced himself for whatever he was about to hear.

"You don't trust us, Antonio.  You push us away over and over again."

"Lorenzo's the one who-"

"Shh! Antonio, it's not Lorenzo.  This is my fault," Frank said.

Frank's fault?  Antonio stopped fidgeting with his buttons.  "What?  What are you talking about?"

"If I had found you sooner.  If I hadn't let them split us up."

"No," Antonio said, covering Frank's hand with his own.  "Come on, you were just a kid.  We were kids."

"So let me be your family now," Frank said firmly.  "Trust me to be your brother.  Trust Stephanie and Lorenzo to love you, too.  When I tell you that you mean everything to me, I need you to believe it."

Antonio peeled Frank's hand away from his neck and clasped it in both of his.  He couldn't find his voice to respond.

"Lorenzo and Stephanie love you," Frank repeated.  "And anyway, Lorenzo just said he's staying here until the commercial wraps.  The four of us will have plenty of time to figure out how to adjust to their new situation."

"Antonio?  Are you okay?"

He started, discovering to his chagrin that Lorenzo was standing on the landing.  How much had he heard?

Frank squeezed his hand.  "Come finish Fish Tank Kings, at least.  The group isn't right without you."

Antonio heaved a long sigh, nodded, and allowed Frank to drag him back upstairs by one hand.  The only thing more uncomfortable than spending the weekend alone with his television was apologizing to his friends for being a jackass.  On the other hand, it was something he was getting used to by now.

 

 

 

The office seemed strange throughout the course of the following week, and Antonio couldn't help but feel that it was because Stephanie was finally working out of Philly.  Even Joe seemed subdued as he wandered between the kitchen and the customer service department with his coffee in one hand and his Blackberry in the other, scrolling through emails with his thumb and instead of chatting with the new hires.  Lorenzo kept drifting into Antonio's office at random points in the day, perching quietly on the spare chair while he messed with his phone, then wandering out several minutes later.  On Wednesday, he nervously admitted to Antonio that he had forgotten to check Pokémon Go all day and had broken both his Pokéstop and catch streaks, which would put his seven-day bonuses out of sync with Stephanie's.  On Thursday he told him that he had started leaving the television on all night to mask the silence of being alone in his apartment.  Antonio resisted the urge to invite him over, remembering what had happened the last time Lorenzo had spent the night at his place.

For the first time in a long time, Antonio found himself navigating to the depths of his My Documents folder and looking through the pictures he had saved of him and Constance.  Maybe it was the grim silence that had fallen over the office without Stephanie, or maybe it was the lost look in Lorenzo's eyes that he recognized so deeply; either way, he could feel her absence again like a constant twinge.

During lunch on Monday, it had taken only a few minutes of strained conversation and awkward looks in his direction for Antonio to lift the ban on discussing Mozart or the commercial in his presence.  Since then, he sat in near-silence for an hour each day while Lorenzo and Frank hashed out the details of the commercial they were working on, finishing his food before his friends had even begun eating and fiddling around with his phone until it was time to go back to the office.  If this was what had happened to their group without Stephanie, what would it be like when the commercial was finished and it was just the Salieri boys at lunch each day?

To be fair, he had been gloomy himself ever since Stephanie and Lorenzo had announced that they were moving in together.  He wasn't jealous, not exactly - or maybe he was, a little bit.  Maybe it had been hard to realize that he wasn't the most important force in his best friend's life.  If Lorenzo was willing to leave behind his job, his apartment, and his friends to move to another state just to be near Stephanie, it felt like Antonio wasn't even a factor.  He didn't matter at all.

But what would it have taken to change Lorenzo's mind and keep him here?  Could it be done without compromising his relationship with Stephanie?  Antonio began to listen more and more to Frank and Lorenzo's conversations about the progress of the commercial.  Just as it had been with Stephanie, the main stumbling block to their success seemed to be Wolfgang Mozart.  He was flighty and moody, showing up late most days with his attention trained on his phone, or arriving with a guitar case strapped to his back and sitting in an empty office composing while the rest of the team waited in the studio.  He never seemed fully awake before the afternoon.  If anything was going to drag out the remainder of this commercial shoot and keep Lorenzo nearby, it was Mozart.

To everyone's delight but Rosenberg in accounting, on Friday Kia sent word that they wanted a second commercial with the Divine Libertines for their new minivan, the Figaro.  When Lorenzo dropped by Antonio's office to let him know, Antonio attributed his stifled grin to the name of the car.  He waited until Lorenzo had left before he dropped into his chair and let it spread into a full-blown smirk.  A second commercial?  Lorenzo would be in New York a lot longer than he had thought.

Since it was a Friday, Lorenzo left at three to catch an early train to Philadelphia for the weekend, and at five Antonio found himself making his way to the PATH train alone.  This was the first time in months that he was facing a weekend with no plans.  He was toying with the idea of getting a leash for Catstance and taking her to a park just to have a reason to leave the apartment when a limousine pulled up alongside him in the empty alleyway.

Antonio tightened his grip on his briefcase and veered further away from the road.  Did human traffickers drive limousines?  It seemed unlikely given how easily recognizable such a car would be, but it would also be a good vehicle to pack full of kidnapped victims.

The back window rolled down, and a familiar voice cut through the icy evening: "Buonasera, Signor Salieri!"

Antonio froze where he stood, nearly losing his grip on his briefcase.

Wolfgang Mozart was hanging out the back window of the limousine, grinning widely at him.  Calling his name in that fake Italian accent.  Mocking him.

There was no one else in the narrow street, not that Antonio thought he was calling someone else "Signor Salieri" anyway.  He pressed his lips into a firm line and faced the singer, unsure how he was meant to respond.

To his utter bafflement, Mozart reached down and opened the back door of the limousine, gesturing for Antonio to get in.

He didn't move.  Was the lead singer of the Divine Libertines about to kidnap him?  Was this some sort of revenge for Antonio's behavior at their rehearsal the other week?

"Come on, get in!" Mozart said, gesturing again.  He pushed the door open wider.

Antonio took a step back, shaking his head.  "What do you want?" he finally asked.

"I need your help.  It's about Constance."

"Constance?" Antonio repeated.  Had she put him up to all this?  Maybe it was some kind of prank.

Mozart scooted to the far side of the limo, patting the empty space next to him.  "Come on!  We're going to go tell her what really happened."

Despite himself, Antonio edged toward the curb.  "What do you mean, 'what really happened'?"

"Just get in!"

Maybe the situation had overwhelmed his better judgement, or maybe he recognized earnestness in Mozart's expression.  Either way, Antonio cast another glance around the empty alley and, heaving a final sigh, climbed into Wolfgang Mozart's limousine.  He hadn't made any plans for the weekend anyway.  Might as well get kidnapped by a rock star.

The dark, padded interior of the limo felt like a hearse.  He and Mozart were on a bench seat at the back end of the car, facing a long L-shaped seat that ran up one side and curved behind the partition that separated them from the driver.  Opposite the long seat was a minibar stocked with empty glasses and a tiny television screen.  Every time the car hit a bump, the glasses clinked together ominously.  Was this the same car they had taken from Madison Square Garden the night Antonio had found Frank?  The night Constance had left him for Mozart?  Did all limos look the same, or did Mozart own a personal limo that his driver had to park somewhere every night?

The moment they pulled out into traffic, Mozart scooted closer to him and clapped his hands onto Antonio's shoulders, forcing him to face him.  He studied Antonio in the dim light of the limousine, searching his face like he was trying to memorize it.  Antonio sat rigidly, wondering what on earth he had just gotten himself into.

There was something uncanny about seeing Mozart offstage.  He didn't seem to be wearing any makeup, revealing just a normal guy with the same features and mannerisms as a glam rock star.  He even had a significant amount of stubble covering his chin.  If he hadn't been the lead singer of the Divine Libertines, if it wasn't for his tousled hair and the limo, he could have just been someone selling popcorn at a movie theater or picking up a kid from school.

Antonio suddenly realized that he had been staring at Mozart as intently as Mozart was staring at him. He started to pull away, but Mozart released his shoulders and clapped his hands on either side of Antonio's face, holding him still.  "You do look like Frank," he observed, tilting Antonio's head down.  "But you're a little cuter."  He grinned, letting one thumb trace the line of Antonio's lower lip.  "Yeah, I see why Constance likes you."

At that, Antonio ripped himself free of Mozart's grip and slid back on the bench seat until his back was flush against the door.  He hadn't expected Mozart to touch his mouth like that, and he certainly hadn't expected it to feel so sensual.  He pulled his briefcase into his lap, a barrier between the two of them and a shield to prevent Mozart from noticing that- well, that it had been a long time.  He'd never even gotten around to having sex with Constance before she left him for Mozart, and the last time before that had been the ill-advised weekend with Lorenzo. 

"A little uptight, though!" Mozart observed, grinning again.  He moved back as well, holding up both hands in a mock gesture of peace.  "That explains a lot."

"Why are you stalking me?" blurted Antonio.  His pulse was pounding in his ears as the blood flow in his body slowly returned to normal.  He could still feel the warmth of Mozart's thumb on his lip.

"Stalking you?  I'm not, am I?"

"Why do you care whether or not I dated Lorenzo?  And how did you know I'd be taking that shortcut?"

"Look," Mozart said, holding up his hands again, "Tony?  Antonio?  Which is it?"

"Antonio," he gritted.

That earned another one of his airy grins.  "Antonio," Mozart repeated.  He put on that fake Italian accent again, "Antonio Salieri!"

Antonio rolled his eyes.  For a moment, he considered putting on a German accent and making fun of the name 'Wolfgang', but he wasn't terribly good at accents and definitely didn't want to encourage him.

"Why did your parents name you Antonio when your brother's just Frank?"

"His name's Francesco," Antonio said, crossing his arms and bracing himself for more jokes. 

"Francesco Salieri? Oh my god!" giggled Mozart.  "Francesco and Antonio!"

"Yes, it's hilarious.  Want to tell me how you knew where to find me if you're not stalking me?"

Mozart shrugged.  "I followed you.  I was waiting for your 'amico' Lorenzo, but he didn't come out of the building.  You did, and I thought it would be a good time to straighten things out with Constance."

"Straighten what out with Constance?  And why do you keep asking people if I'm dating Lorenzo?"

Mozart slid his phone out of his pocket and began scrolling up through a text conversation.  After a moment, he turned the phone around and held it an inch away from Antonio's nose.

He squinted, taking the phone from Mozart and holding it at a reasonable distance.  It was a screenshot of a facebook post, a picture Stephanie must have posted of the group during that first weekend on Lorenzo's couch.  Frank was sitting in his regular spot on the left, remote in hand, just like he had been last weekend.  Lorenzo was on the other side of the couch, smiling that lazy smile of his, and Antonio was right in the middle.  Well, he wasn't precisely in the middle: he was leaning on Lorenzo pretty heavily with a somewhat dopey grin on his face.  Lorenzo, meanwhile, had his cheek pressed against the top of Antonio's head and his arm around his shoulders.  Since Stephanie had taken the picture, she was nowhere to be seen.  "Oh," Antonio muttered.  If anyone didn't know them, it would definitely look like they were a couple.  He started to pass the phone back to Mozart, but a thought struck him: "Why were you stalking Stephanie's facebook page before she even started work on the commercial?"

"I wasn't," Mozart said, sliding his phone out of Antonio's grip.  "But you'd ditched your girlfriend without a word two days before this picture was posted and deleted your own page.  So sue her for trying to figure out what had happened to you."

Understanding sunk into the pit of Antonio's stomach like a chill.  "Constance thought I left her for Lorenzo," he murmured.  "She thought I was the one who left her."

"But you didn't!" Mozart exclaimed, throwing out his arms dramatically.  His voice was far louder than Antonio would have expected; the words had practically come out as a shout.  

He shot a glance toward the partition at the front of the limo, wondering if Mozart's driver could hear all of this.  They had probably borne witness to much stranger conversations.

"That's why we're going to tell her the truth."

"You're- you're taking me to see Constance?  Now?" Antonio asked.  He cast a nervous glance around the car, half-searching for a mirror and half-wondering if he could survive opening one of the doors and barrel-rolling out into traffic.  Why hadn't he taken Stephanie up on her offer to trim his hair on Sunday?  How long had it been since he had last run a lint-roller over these trousers?  Hadn't he gained weight since the last time he saw Constance?  Would she be able to tell?

Mozart was studying him again, an inappropriately fond look dancing in his eyes.  It made him feel self-conscious, suddenly, and a little irritated.

"Well why the hell do you want Constance to forgive me, anyway?" he snapped.  "If you're dating her now, isn't it better for you that I stay out of the picture?"

That patronizing affection melted into an expression of honest confusion.  Mozart shook his head, staring at Antonio like he had just suggested they drive the limo through a playground full of children.  "Because she's unhappy," he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.  "And if getting you back is what's best for her, then I'm going to make it happen."

Great.  Now Wolfgang Mozart thought he was a jackass too.  Antonio turned away, pretending to be fascinated by something on the other side of the tinted window.  They were in midtown, only a couple of blocks from the Webers' karaoke bar.  It felt like he hadn't been here in years, yet he was assailed by fresh memories of the evening he had rushed here after work, worried that he would look too Wall Street for the Divine Libertines concert that night.  If only he had known that no amount of eyeliner would have kept Constance's attention when Wolfgang Mozart was prancing around the stage flirting with her.

Except, he reminded himself, from Constance's perspective, it was Antonio who had walked out on her that night.  They had planned for a three-day weekend, just the two of them and an enormous box of condoms, and Antonio had left her at the karaoke bar without even wishing her a good night.  He looked guiltily down at his briefcase, which her mother had later discovered on her bed.  For all this time, Antonio had told himself that if Constance wanted to reach out to him despite her mother's warnings, she could have done so.  Yet it had never occurred to him that he could have done the same.  He had never doubted for a moment that without him, Constance was finally free to move on to someone better suited to her.  Her relationship with Mozart had seemed inevitable.

The course of his thoughts must have been apparent, for suddenly Mozart moved his briefcase onto the floor and scooted closer to Antonio - a little too close, as per usual.  He put a hand on his thigh in a gesture that he might have intended as reassuring, and may have even been so if his hand had been resting just few inches nearer to Antonio's knee.  He rolled his eyes heavenward, willing himself to think of something appalling.  Constance's mother, maybe, or Rosenberg from accounting.  Constance's mother _with_ Rosenberg from accounting?  That German-themed bar where the servers wore dusty plastic flower crowns while they were refilling drinks.

It was no use.  He huffed and pushed Mozart's hand away, quickly crossing his legs.  For someone who hadn't even shaved that morning, Mozart sure was wearing a lot of cologne.  Antonio wished the smell was cheap or cloying, but it was actually unusual and rather nice.  Of course it was.  "Would you get off me?" Antonio snapped.

"You're mad, I get it," said Mozart, sliding away at last.  "Don't worry.  You can wait here until you're ready.  I'll tell her what's going on and we'll get the whole thing straightened out."  With that, Mozart picked up his phone and tapped a contact saved to his speed dial.

Antonio looked out the window again, glowering at the dusky city.  Even if Mozart managed to convince Constance that Antonio hadn't left her for Lorenzo, he wasn't going to break up with her for Antonio's sake.  This was all a weak attempt at getting her some closure so the two of them could be even happier together.  His memories of the two of them making out in the hallway by the elevators resurfaced in his thoughts.  The way Mozart had been grinding his hips against her, and the breathy gasp from Constance...

No, no, that was making things worse.  What the hell was wrong with him?

He saw Constance waiting in front of the karaoke bar when the limousine turned onto the street.  Her mass of golden hair reflected the harsh neon sign of the bar, casting an ethereal glow over her figure.  Did Mozart even notice?  Antonio sneaked a glance at the singer, who was sitting up on his knees in the seat and pressing his forehead against the window like an excited dog, one hand already on the door handle.  He looked over his shoulder at Antonio and said, "Whenever you're ready!  Don't worry," before tumbling out into the street the moment the limo rolled to a stop at the curb.  "Constance!" he called.

Antonio shrunk away from the open car door, his heart pounding in his ears.  When he had gotten dressed this morning, he hadn't expected to be seeing Constance again that day.  He hadn't ever expected to see her again.  Was this really happening?

As soon as she spotted Mozart, Constance's face lit up.  "Wolfi!" she chirped, darting across the sidewalk and throwing herself into his outstretched arms.  Antonio's heart sank; he remembered when that heartwarming expression had been reserved for him.  

Mozart caught her and spun her around once like a romantic lead in a cheesy movie.  Antonio rolled his eyes, sliding further into the darkness of the limo.  His back was pressed against the far door again; he wondered if the driver would care if he just slipped out of the car and ran away before Mozart had a chance to try to drag him out before Constance.

"Don't you owe me a kiss?" she asked coquettishly, looking up at him through her lashes.  Inside the limo, Antonio balled his hand into a fist, the air leaving his lungs in a shudder.  This must have been what Mozart wanted.  All that nonsense about reconciling the two of them, when really he just wanted Antonio to be forced to watch him kissing the woman he loved in the middle of the sidewalk.

"Sure," Mozart had said, "but I wanted to tell you something.  I brought you something- someone!"

Constance was leaning into his arms, her expression dreamy.  "What is it?" she asked.  "A surprise?"

"Don't be angry," said Mozart.  He turned toward the limo, gesturing fervently for Antonio to come forward.

"Why would I be angry?"  Constance followed Mozart's gaze, craning her neck to try to see into the limousine.  "Who is it?"

When Antonio was a boy, he and the other kids at the home were loaded onto a bus and dropped off at the community pool once a month during the summer.  He had usually lingered somewhere in the middle, treading water and waiting for their chaperone to round them all up again, but one day he had decided to try jumping off the diving board.  Even now, twenty years later, he could vividly remember the feeling he had had as he stood on that wobbly white plank, the twinkling surface of the water far below him, and completely lost control over his legs.  No matter how much the other kids chanted for him to jump, Antonio had been helpless to obey.

This was the same feeling all over again.  Antonio sat motionless in the back seat of Mozart's limo, petrified.  Even if he had wanted to slide over to the open door, he couldn't make himself move.  He simply sat there, staring through the tinted window at his ex-girlfriend and the lead singer of his favorite band.

"Give him a second," he heard Mozart say.  "He's as surprised to be here as you will be to see him."

"'He'?  Who is it, Wolfi?  Tell me what you're up to."

Mozart cast another glance at the limo.  "Well, remember the weekend we found each other again?  You were pretty upset."

"Thanks for reminding me," she said grimly, her bright expression clouding over.  "Wait- Wolfi, you didn't talk to _Antonio_ , did you?"

Within the limousine, Antonio felt nauseous.  She had practically spat his name like a curse.  Constance hated him, and it didn't matter that it was based on a misleading photo she'd seen on Stephanie's facebook page.  If by some miracle she decided to forgive him tonight, if for some reason she left Wolfgang Mozart behind and launched herself back into Antonio's arms, how long would it be until she regretted it?  Mozart was a little strange, but he obviously cared about her.  And look at him!  He was a rock star who rode around in a limo and was mobbed by adoring fans every time he went out in public.  Meanwhile, Antonio was... he looked down at his trousers, wincing at all the cat hair.  Antonio was a marketing manager from Jersey with a rented studio apartment and abandonment issues.

On the ceiling near the center of the seat was a little box that appeared to be an intercom: could he use that to ask the driver to take him home right away before this whole confrontation got worse?  Just being here was distressing enough, but if he stood before Constance and she turned that same cold stare on him again, he wasn't sure how he'd survive it.

"Oh my god!" a familiar voice shrieked.  "I caught you red-handed, you pervert!"

Antonio recoiled, his anxieties immediately replaced by fear: Constance's mother had just come storming out of the karaoke bar.  This time, however, Antonio wasn't the focus of her rage.  She descended on Mozart and Constance, wraithlike under the same lighting that made her daughter look so angelic.

"Mom- ma'am!" Mozart stammered, caught off-guard.  He dropped his grip on Constance's waist and leaped backwards.  "No, you don't understand, I-"

"What, you weren't going to try anything?  You were just here to say hi?"

"Actually-" Mozart began, gesturing vaguely toward the limo where Antonio was still hiding.

"Oh, Constance!" her mother interrupted.  "After everything Allie has been through, how can you be so stupid?  I thought you'd learned your lesson with that last asshole, and now I find you right out front of our home with Wolfgang?  Wolfgang, of all people?  The last thing we need are more paparazzi following our family around, commenting on my promiscuous daughters!  Thank God your father didn't live to see this!"

Until now Constance had been silent, rooted to the spot in apparent shock.  At the mention of her late father, though, her eyes widened.  "Mom, how dare you?"

"Go upstairs!" her mother demanded, pushing Constance toward the bar.  "I'll deal with Wolfgang myself."

Constance spun out of her grip and stormed back over to Mozart's side, replying, "Never!"

"You're such a pain in the ass!" Mrs. Weber snarled.  Then, to Antonio's horror, she raised a hand to slap Constance right there in front of the bar.

To his relief, Constance saw the blow coming and ducked.  To his delight, Mozart did not.

There was a beat of silence after Mrs. Weber's open hand connected hard with Mozart's face.  The three of them stared at each other, Mozart slowly covering his wounded cheek with his own hand.  At the front of the limo, Mozart's driver finally opened his door and stepped out, ostensibly to provide some level of security to the star.  Tall and thin with a shaggy haircut and eastern Asian ancestry, the driver was a lot less burly than Antonio would have expected from a bodyguard.

It was Mozart who finally broke the silence.  "Uh- maybe it would be best if I just left," he muttered.

Constance's mother launched into action again, beckoning broadly until someone else emerged from inside the bar.  A stout, sharply-dressed woman with features like a bulldog hurried across the sidewalk, blocking Mozart's access to the limousine.  "Surely you aren't thinking of running, young man?"

"Running?" Mozart repeated.  "No, of course not, but-"

"Because if you get this girl pregnant and disappear on her, my client is prepared to bring a lawsuit against you."

That surprised Mozart almost as much as it seemed to embarrass Constance.  "A lawsuit?  Who the hell are you?"

"Joanne von Thorwart," said the woman, producing a business card from her lapel and passing it to Mozart.  "I'm the Webers' attorney."

Mrs. Weber threw an arm around the other woman.  "And thank you for being here, Joanne!"

Mozart was looking back and forth between the two of them with as much confusion as Antonio had felt when he first got into his limo.  "What's going on here?"

"Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart?" the attorney said, stepping forward.

Mozart just nodded, dumbfounded.

The attorney reached into her lapel and pulled out a bundle of papers.  "You've been served," she intoned.  "Here's your copy of the restraining order."

"A restraining order?" he echoed, staring blankly at the documents the woman was holding out to him and making no move to accept them.

"After today, if you come within a hundred feet of this establishment it will be considered a misdemeanor.  You'll risk a minimum fine of $300 or jail time," the attorney went on.

"But- but you can't do this!  I haven't done anything wrong!  My father said-"

"Oh for heavens' sake, always going on about his father!  That's his excuse for everything!" Mrs. Weber interrupted.

The attorney shook the bundle of papers at Mozart.  "Is all of this clear?"

Mozart took a half-step back, casting a desperate stare around the street.  His driver was leaning against the door of the limo, arms crossed over his chest.  Antonio couldn't see his face from where he was sitting: was he nodding reassuringly at his employer or shooting threatening glares at Mrs. Weber?  On the sidewalk, Constance was watching her mother with both hands clapped over her mouth, the tears in her eyes obvious even in the dim light.  "What's clear," Mozart said weakly, "is that this was all a trap."  He snatched the restraining order out of the attorney's hand.  "Congratulations, Mrs. Weber.  Now you've chased away two people who love your daughter."

"Wolfi!" Constance called, the word coming out as a sob.

Holding the restraining order against his chest, Mozart turned to face her, dropped into a solemn bow, and then trudged back over to the waiting limousine.  He slammed the door a little harder than necessary, finally blocking out the chilly breeze.

Antonio eyed the door handle on his side again.  If the Webers weren't standing just outside the car, he would have been tempted to slip out now so that Mozart could be alone with his thoughts.

The singer cast a look at Antonio, his expression unreadable, and shook his head in disbelief.  He was still holding the restraining order over his heart.

"Are- uh, are you okay?"

Instead of answering, Mozart jabbed the intercom button on the ceiling between them.  "Jean-Paul?" he barked.

From the front seat, the driver replied, "Where to, Wolfgang?"

Antonio cleared his throat, pulling his briefcase into the seat at his side again.  "You can just drop me off at the PATH train."

"Nah, fuck that," Mozart said.  "We need something to drink."

The limousine lurched forward, and Antonio resigned himself to his fate.  Instead of spending Friday night at home with his cat, he was apparently being kidnapped by a heartbroken Wolfgang Mozart.


	13. Chapter 13

Half an hour later, Antonio was perched precariously on the edge of an immaculate hotel mattress, holding a full glass of wine as though he suspected it might have been poisoned, watching Wolfgang Mozart rifle through his wardrobe in search of pajama bottoms.

When Mozart had decided that Antonio was going to join him in getting drunk and commiserating about Constance's overbearing mother, Antonio had - quite reasonably, he thought - assumed that they were going to some trendy, noisy bar where he would have a chance to lose himself in the crowd and sneak home to freedom.  But it had turned out that Mozart wasn't allowed to go drinking in public lest he do something silly and end up on TMZ the next morning.  It had turned out that for Mozart, "needing a drink" meant getting as trashed as he wanted in the privacy of his own room with only his grim assistant Jean-Paul for company.

Even more surprising, "his own room" was the penthouse of a hotel in Hell's Kitchen.  There had been a reserved spot for the limousine in the underground parking garage, and the three of them had ridden up a private elevator together, Mozart pacing anxiously in the confined space, Antonio crowded against a wall, and the surly Jean-Paul standing guard over the panel.  The penthouse itself looked like something out of a movie: the main floor had a full kitchen, a sitting room, and a television that rose up out of an end table at the push of a button; a floating staircase led to a landing flanked by two enormous master bedrooms, all of it lined by two-story windows that boasted panoramic views of the Hudson and beyond that, New Jersey.  One of the rooms was apparently for Jean-Paul, who ordered room service on Mozart's behalf and then disappeared behind a firmly-closed door.

While they were waiting, Mozart had poured them both glasses of rosé and gestured for Antonio to follow him upstairs.  Why he hadn't excused himself to change into pajamas alone was beyond Antonio; he hadn't realized why he was climbing the staircase until they were already on the landing.  An elegant desk and chair were situated in one corner of Mozart's bedroom, but they were both strewn with laundry, which left him with the bed as the only option when Mozart told him to make himself comfortable.

Comfort was definitely out of the question, Antonio had told himself as he sat gingerly on the bed.  He took a cautious sip of the rosé, taking care lest any spill on the crisp white bedding.  He would need a lot more than this if he was going to have to be Wolfgang Mozart's psychiatrist for the rest of the evening.

If he was honest about his own feelings, he would have to admit that he was a little bit delighted by the surprise turn of events at the Webers' karaoke bar.  It was vindictive and unkind, sure, but somehow, knowing that Mrs. Weber had gone so far as to take out a restraining order against Mozart came as a weird sort of relief.  With Antonio, she had blocked him on Constance's social media accounts and made her daughter change phone numbers.  With Mozart?  Straight to the family attorney.  He realized that ever since the concert and the difficult morning that followed, a part of him had always assumed that Constance and her family wanted the nervous foster kid from Jersey out of the way so Constance was free to date the wealthy rock star she'd known since they were kids.  He remembered the jokes Constance had made about telling her mother than Antonio was an Italian prince in order to trick her into approving of him.  Apparently, money and fame couldn't to loosen Mrs. Weber's grip on her daughters either.  

He wondered how her sister pop sensation Aloysia was faring, facing both her first pregnancy and a divorce.  She had fallen out of the public eye since Joey Lange had left her and she had returned home to her mother's care.  That left Mrs. Weber with a bar to run and three grown daughters to oversee, plus another daughter who was pregnant, heartbroken, and the subject of incessant media speculation.  Maybe Antonio was lucky that Frank was his only surviving relative after all.

"That's better!" Mozart proclaimed, emerging from the ensuite bathroom at last.  His layers of button-down shirts and belts had been replaced by a single Divine Libertines t-shirt and a pair of black pajama pants patterned with tiny white stars.  Antonio bit back a smirk and quickly averted his gaze; if he had had to guess what Wolfgang Mozart wore to bed, it would have been this exact outfit.  "Hey," said Mozart, "are you sure you don't want to borrow any pajamas?"

Antonio shot an incredulous stare at the singer, unable to keep his expression neutral.  "This isn't a- a slumber party," he stammered.  "I haven't even fed my cat!"

"We'll send Jean-Paul!"

"You want your driver to take your limousine to Jersey to feed my cat?" Antonio clarified, still unable to shake the feeling that he was having some sort of fever dream.

"He can take his own car," said Mozart.  "He likes having an excuse to get out on a Friday night and leave me to my own devices."  He held out a hand to Antonio, palm-up.  

Antonio just stared at it.

"Give me your key!"

"I could- I could just go home and feed my own cat," Antonio said again.  "It's not that hard."

Mozart took a step closer, wiggling his fingers.  "If you leave, who am I supposed to talk to?  I don't- I don't want to be alone right now."

There wasn't really a way to answer that.  Antonio sighed, withdrawing his keys from his pocket and dropping them into Mozart's outstretched hand.  That wide grin blossomed across Mozart's face and he bounded across the landing.

To Antonio's relief, Jean-Paul didn't seem annoyed by Mozart's request.  He had Antonio write his address on a post-it note, verified which keys were for the building and for the apartment, verified where the cat food was and how much to put out, and off he went.  Antonio had never felt more ridiculous in his life, but Mozart and his assistant seemed to think nothing of it.

Room service arrived as Jean-Paul was leaving.  The young man who wheeled in the tray did a slight double-take at the number of bills Mozart stuffed into his hand, pocketing them a little more quickly than seemed appropriate and thanking them profusely as he bowed out of the room.  Antonio swallowed a smile, wondering what that guy's daily life was like in a hotel like this one.  He would have expected that the employee had served plenty of other celebrities who thought nothing of giant tips, but maybe most famous people undervalued his work and left him nothing.  That would explain the look on his face as he left with a fistful of Mozart's cash.

The food was covered by one of those silver domes, just like in the movies.  Mozart pushed the cart right over to the couch, smashing the button to bring up the television and beckoning for Antonio to join him.  "You haven't eaten, right?"

"Of course not.  You abducted me right after I left work," Antonio muttered.

To his surprise, that sent Mozart into a fit of hysterics.  "Abduction in a Seraglio!" he giggled.

Was it even possible to offend Wolfgang Mozart?  He seemed to take everything as a joke or a as a compliment.  That must come from fame and fortune, Antonio thought, watching as Mozart dramatically lifted the silver dome off the dinner he had ordered for them.  When you lived like this - ordering room service for meals, sending your manservant off to feed a stranger's cat, and gazing out over the Hudson through enormous, spotless windows - it was probably hard to find anything to complain about.

"Oh, they sent us more wine!" Mozart gasped.  "But I can find something stronger if you want.  There's a minibar in my room."

"I'm fine with wine," said Antonio, eyeing the steaming dish of pasta that Mozart had uncovered.

The singer followed his gaze.  "How hungry are you?" he asked.  He grabbed an empty plate and the serving spoon.  "I figured Signor Antonio Salieri would like Italian," he added mischievously, putting on that accent again.

"Is it-?"

"Baked rigatoni!"

Rigatoni.

Antonio launched himself off the couch, his growling stomach forgotten.  "You're fucking hilarious, aren't you?" he snapped.

The grin dropped off of Mozart's face.  His large brown eyes darted back and forth between Antonio and the pasta, lowering the spoon uncertainly.  "Uh... what?"

"Did she- she told you-?" Antonio started to say, but Mozart's body language was already answering his question.  He huffed, tugging at his sweater.  If Jean-Paul hadn't already left with his keys, he would have been halfway out the door by now.  "Why rigatoni?" he demanded.

"The... the Italian thing?  Look, I'm sorry, I'll let it go," Mozart answered meekly.  "Do you want me to order something else?"

"Just because it's Italian?  Not because of- because it's rigatoni?"

Mozart furrowed his brow, cocking his head to one side as he studied Antonio.  "What's wrong with rigatoni?"

"Nothing," Antonio said quickly, dropping back onto the couch.  If Constance hadn't already told Mozart about her silly pet name, he wasn't going to be the one to bring it up.  He definitely didn't want to risk Mozart laughing at it.  "Forget it," he muttered.

Mozart shrugged.  "Forgotten."  He filled up a plate with the rigatoni, then dropped the serving spoon back into the dish, nudging it uncertainly until the handle was facing Antonio.

He served himself, tamping down a sudden inappropriate urge to laugh.  When he had been a moody preteen who tore images of Wolfgang Mozart out of library magazines and taped them to his binders, how would Antonio have reacted if someone had told him that one day he was going to yell at his then-celebrity crush about pasta in a penthouse suite?  He picked up his fork and heaved a sigh.  "Look, I'm sorry," he ventured.  "It's been a weird day.  A weird week."

"For me too," said Mozart.  An unpleasant thought seemed to strike him; he lowered the pasta into his lap and shook his head to clear it.  "Hey, how's Stephanie doing at the new office?" he asked, cheer forcefully injected into his voice.

Antonio shrugged.  "Ask Lorenzo."

"Lorenzo Da Ponte," Mozart said, the fake Italian accent back.  He caught Antonio's eye and flinched guiltily.  "I did it again! I'm sorry!"

"Lorenzo's a lot more likely to punch you in the jaw for it than I am," Antonio muttered.

Of course that earned another giggle from Mozart.  "Would he take off all those rings first, at least?"  He rubbed his cheek at the thought of it.

Antonio paused, a forkful of pasta halfway to his mouth, distracted by the gentle noise of Mozart's stubble against his palm.  It had been a long time since he had woken up to a scratchy cheek grazing across his skin.  He tore his gaze away and hastily resumed eating.  It had been a long time since a lot of things, he reminded himself.

Mozart put his plate back onto the cart suddenly, his fork jammed deep into his untouched pasta.  "A _restraining order_?"

His mouth full of food, Antonio just shook his head in what he hoped looked like sympathy.

"Was that what happened with you?  Constance always said you chickened out on spending the weekend with her and then her mom found some dirty text she'd sent you and took away her phone.  But did she take out a restraining order on you?"

"No.  She came to my office and threw my briefcase at me," Antonio said.  "She called me 'godless'."

"Godless!" Wolfgang snorted.  "Cecilia called you that?  She hasn't even been to church since her husband died!"

"Do you know what's going on with her sister?  Aloysia?  Maybe Constance's mom wasn't quite so... extreme before the whole Joey Lange thing."

"Allie's doing alright," said Mozart.  "We got back in touch a few months ago, and I've brought her takeout a few times.  Now that she's got her family nearby, she's getting kind of excited about the baby."

"So it's just Mrs. Weber who's taking it this hard."

"That attorney said she would sue me if I got Constance pregnant!" Mozart exclaimed.  "It's not new; Cecilia has always been weird about her kids.  She and her husband practically set me up with Allie when we were teenagers, but then when I actually liked her they told her I was a creep and wouldn't let me visit anymore!  I know I was an annoying kid, but I don't think I was a creep!"

Antonio trailed his fork through the leftover tomato sauce on his plate.  "We met once when we were kids.  You and I."

"Really?" Mozart asked, his expression brightening.  He scooted closer on the couch.  "When?"

"You did a- uh..." Antonio hesitated.  Was there any way to finish the story he'd started without bringing up his sordid childhood to Wolfgang Mozart?  He hadn't thought this through.  "You did a photo op at a, uh, community center," he said.  "You sang a couple songs and they took pictures of you mingling with- with 'troubled youths'."

"And you were one of the troubled youths?" Mozart teased.  "Which community center was it?  Was it here in New York?"

"In Jersey," Antonio said.  He steeled himself before he went on: "The Padova Boys' Home."

Yep, there was the flicker of realization in Mozart's eyes, the twitch of his brow, the hard stare.  Sometimes Antonio thought that the worst part of growing up in the system was admitting to normal people that he'd grown up in the system.

Then, to his surprise, Mozart leaped to his feet and exclaimed, "I remember that place!"

"You do?" Antonio asked, incredulous.

"Yeah!  It was like a miniature gym, like an indoor basketball court with wooden floors and a little stage at one side, right?  And they had all these metal folding chairs set up for the boys."

"Yeah... yeah, that was it."

"They had me tour the dorms and everything!  Oh!  Wait here," he said, and he scampered up the floating staircase and out of sight.

Antonio set his empty plate back on the tray, then covered the serving dish with the silver dome again lest the pasta get cold.  From upstairs, he could hear Mozart opening and closing drawers and muttering to himself.  He let himself smile as he took another sip of the cloying rosé.

He checked his phone, wondering if Jean-Paul had had any trouble finding his apartment or operating the freight elevator.  In the group chat, Lorenzo and Stephanie had posted a selfie of the two of them pouting on an unfamiliar couch and a message that they missed the Salieri boys.  Frank had also texted him, asking how his night was going.  Nothing from Mozart's assistant.  

Antonio smirked at Frank's text.  Would his brother believe that he was drinking wine and eating pasta in Wolfgang Mozart's hotel room?  If he told him now, Frank would probably text right back with a million questions.  Antonio couldn't explain the turn his day had taken to himself, much less to his brother, and he definitely didn't want Frank to gloat that this was proof that Antonio had been wrong about Mozart all along.  After all that talk about trust, though, he would have to tell Frank about this little adventure before he learned about it from Mozart on Monday.

"Found it!" Mozart called, bounding back down the stairs and launching himself onto the couch next to Antonio.  He dropped a massive scrapbook into the space between them and flipped it open to reveal pages upon pages of carefully-preserved newspaper clippings.  "My mom put this together," he said fondly.  "She made one for my sister, too." He turned a few pages and tapped a photo of a round-faced woman lingering nearby while Mozart, probably elementary-school aged, shook hands with Marc Summers on the set of Family Double Dare.

Antonio leaned closer, studying the other faces in the image.  "Your whole family went on Double Dare?  I used to love that show."

"My sister," Mozart said, indicating a cheerful brunette around little Mozart's height, "and my dad."  The father was an imposing man with a square jaw and neatly-combed hair who, despite their matching t-shirts and gaudy surroundings, stood rigidly behind the podium with his mouth set in a grim line.  Antonio wondered if this episode was preserved on youtube somewhere.  

Mozart flipped through a few more pages, offering momentary glimpses of headlines chronicling his childhood rise to fame.  He paused, squinted at a random article, shook his head, and backed up a couple pages.  "Is this it?" he asked, sliding the scrapbook onto Antonio's lap.

Antonio kicked off his shoes before crossing his legs on the pristine white couch, bringing the book closer to his face.  It was a full-page spread, one of those obnoxious articles lauding a celebrity for deigning to spend time with sick kids and orphans.  There was little Mozart again, standing on that old half-stage with a microphone, grinning out over a crowd of boys his age and younger.  Antonio hadn't thought about that gym in years.  Every day between school and dinner, the boys had congregated there with a bunch of hands-off activities to keep them occupied and out of the staff's hair.  He remembered lying on his stomach on those slick wooden floors, trying to finish his homework while some of the older kids played four-square nearby, his pencil jittering on the page with each bounce of their ball.  These photos made it look smaller than he remembered.

Suddenly Mozart's hand flew into his line of vision.  "Hold on!" the singer gasped, tapping fervently at a second photo beneath the main image of himself.  "Is that-?"

They both leaned in at the same time, Antonio hyper-aware of the brush of Mozart's hair against his temple and the crisp scent of his cologne.  It was an image of little Mozart standing in a row of boys from the home, his arms slung chummily around the shoulders of the kids on either side of him.  The boy on his left was chubby and awkward, dark hair falling into his eyes and his expression slightly starstruck.  Antonio recognized the ill-fitting Backstreet Boys t-shirt before he recognized the little face.

"That's you!" Mozart gasped.  "That has to be you, look at those eyes!"

"I remember that shirt," Antonio murmured.

Mozart was bent so far over the book that his nose was nearly touching the article.  "I think I remember this photo op, actually!  They had lined you guys up after the concert and I decided to jump in the middle.  Do you remember it?"

"I remember- uh, I remember... yeah, kind of."  

Mozart looked up at him, brow furrowed.  "What is it?"

"I remember it," Antonio said quickly. 

Mozart watched him for another moment before turning back to the article.  "I was taller than you then," he observed.  "God, you were adorable.  Did we talk to each other?"

"I- I don't remember," Antonio lied, leaning away from Mozart and the book.

"Hey, what's wrong?  Do you want me to put this away?"

Antonio shrugged.  He glanced down at his watch, surprised to find that it was just a few minutes past eight o'clock.  Being surrounded by tall windows that emphasized the empty black sky over the New Jersey skyline made it feel like it was much later.

Mozart slid the book off of Antonio's lap and onto the coffee table, taking care to keep it open to the page they had been looking at.  "Well, I hope I said something nice to you, anyway," he murmured.  "My dad always said I was a brat back then.  He'd record interviews on VHS and play them back so he could tell me what I did wrong.  So... I know I used to be a pain in the ass.  I'm sorry for whatever I did."

"Nothing!" Antonio blurted.  "You didn't do anything wrong!  You were-" he broke off, stopping himself before he said the rest of the sentence aloud.   _You were the first good thing that had ever happened to me._

Mozart watched him patiently, letting the silence become heavy.

After a minute, Antonio huffed and grabbed his glass of rosé, downing the rest of it in a long gulp.  "It was my last week at the home before they shipped me off to foster care," he began.  "But the family didn't take teenagers, so they weren't sending Frank.  They were splitting us up.  We'd been sneaking into each others' dorms every night that week, just... just to be near each other.  We were..." he trailed off again, not quite ready to describe the deepest misery he'd ever felt to the rock star frontman of the Divine Libertines.  "But they wanted a good turnout for the papers, so they forced everybody middle school and younger to go down to the gym for- for your show."

"I remember there were a lot of kids there," Mozart said, refilling Antonio's wine glass.

"You were-" Antonio stopped himself, trying to collect his thoughts.  He closed his eyes.  "You seemed so happy to be there," he said at last.  "When they started taking the pictures for the newspaper it was your idea to come stand with us.  They'd been grilling us all morning on how to act around you, on giving you your space and not asking anything from you, but you came right over and stood next to us.  You acted like- like we were normal kids.  Like  _you_ were just a normal kid.  You treated us like we could have been friends."

Mozart was quiet for another long moment.  He took a sip of the rosé, then swirled the glass absentmindedly.  "I wish somebody had said shit like that to my dad," he sighed.

Antonio glanced at him from the corner of his eye, then looked down at the scrapbook sitting on the table.  Oh yes, he remembered everything about that moment.  He remembered his own shock when the famous boy came over to stand by him, and then his absolute elation when he had thrown a casual arm over his shoulders for the photo.  The flash had gone off, and Mozart had turned to him with an easy grin and asked if he was okay.  When Antonio had nodded, Mozart had asked his name and, hearing it, he'd said, "Antonio!  A cute name for a cute boy!" and had kissed his hand.  Of course, it was all for show.  The press had absolutely eaten it up.  Antonio had known that at the time just as he knew it now, but it was still the first time he had ever met a famous person and the first time he'd ever been called cute.  It had been transformative.  It had taken him years to get over his first celebrity crush.  He may have grown up to be a little more cynical, but his quiet obsession with the Divine Libertines hadn't come from nowhere.

Not that he was going to admit any of that now.

"Is- is your dad like Constance's mom?" Antonio asked, eager to change the subject before Mozart pressed him for more details about their first meeting.

"You mean a fucking lunatic?"

Antonio chuckled.  He couldn't argue with that.

"Have you ever seen that show Toddlers and Tiaras?"

"Maybe," said Antonio.  Maybe every single episode.

"Just imagine one of those pageant moms, but crossed with Darth Vader."

That made Antonio snort into his rosé.  "So... father of the year?"

Mozart looked up from his wine sharply, incredulity spreading across his face.  "You just made a joke!"

"Sure, if sarcasm counts as humor."

"It was funny," said Mozart, "so it was a joke.  Constance said you were funny!"

"Well Constance also said you barely knew her," Antonio shot back before he could stop himself.

That pucker appeared between Mozart's brows as he turned his thoughtful gaze to Antonio.  "You mean at Madison Square Garden?"

"I'm sorry," Antonio said quickly, glancing at the door.  Where was Jean-Paul with his keys?  With every glass of wine it was getting harder to hold his tongue.  "Forget I brought it up," he grumbled.

"No, tell me what happened!  There's no point in being mad at each other if it was a misunderstanding," Mozart said.  He folded his legs beneath him, kneeling on the couch and turning his full attention on Antonio.  "It seems like there were a lot of misunderstandings that night."

Antonio finished his glass of rosé and poured another one, unwilling to meet Mozart's eye.

"You know I originally reserved the tickets for Allie, right?  I heard she was in town and I wanted to see her again.  I got tickets for her and her sisters, but Allie was in the middle of her breakup with Joey and said she didn't want to deal with me.  She gave them to Constance, and Constance emailed me to say that Allie didn't want to come.  I said keep the tickets and I sent Constance a friend request on facebook, but it's true that that night was the first time I'd seen her since she was a kid."

"But that's why you recognized her at the concert," Antonio ceded, his final question about his ill-fated birthday date answered at last.

"I told you I was pretty full of myself when I younger, right?  Well, I was dating Allie, so I didn't really care about her little sisters.  They were nice, but I only knew the difference between Constance and Josie and Sophie because Constance was the tall blonde one." A smile passed over his face, but it dropped away all at once as he said, "Antonio, what are we going to do about Cecilia?"

"Maybe if Constance didn't live with her," he said absently, eyeing the silver dome that was covering the pasta.  Would he look greedy if he took another plate?  Mozart hadn't even touched his serving.

"Yeah, why _does_ she still live with her mom?"

"You're asking me?"

"Doesn't she want to move out?  She could stay with Allie.  Or I could put her up somewhere!" he let out a long, slow sigh.  "Wouldn't that be nice?"

Antonio bit the insides of his cheeks just in time to stop himself from saying 'maybe for you'.  Instead, he asked, "You're going to try to get her back?  Even with the restraining order?"

"The lawyer said I can't go near the bar, not that I can't go near Constance.  Anyway, you saw her face, didn't you?  I can't imagine Constance was part of this- this scheme of her mother's.  I don't know.  Right now, I'm doubting everything."

"She'd have to choose between her family and you," Antonio pointed out.  "Could you ask her to do that?"

Mozart poured himself another glass of the rosé, finishing off the bottle.  Antonio was pretty sure he was only on his third glass, if he was counting correctly.  So how many had Mozart had while they were talking?  The singer downed it all at once, keeping his head tilted back to catch the final drop.  Despite himself, Antonio let his gaze travel down the length of Mozart's neck to the hint of chest hair revealed by his V-necked Divine Libertines shirt.  An errant thought arose that the skin on his throat probably tasted like all the cologne he was wearing.  Had Constance ever kissed his neck or run her fingers through his chest hair?  Had the rough stubble on his jaw ever grazed over her soft, pale skin?

When he was finished, Mozart slammed his glass onto the coffee table a little too forcefully.  "Families are shit," he muttered.

Antonio looked around for a throw pillow to hide the evidence of what he had been thinking while he stared at Mozart's neck, but the minimalist décor was unforgiving.  He settled for sitting cross-legged and resting his hands gently in his lap.

"Fuck," Mozart said, "Shit! I'm sorry, Antonio!"

His gaze jerked back up to Mozart; was he apologizing for causing the situation in Antonio's pants?  That was embarrassing.

But no, Mozart was still talking: "I didn't mean to be- I just meant our parents, my dad and Constance's mom.  I know you don't have- that you're an orph- Fuck, I don't know how to not sound like an asshole now."

"Uh- it's fine," Antonio mumbled, probably a little breathier than necessary.  Why the hell had he thought it was a good idea to start drinking in Mozart's hotel room?  And then to start talking about his stupid childhood crush in front of him?

"My mom died when I was in high school," blurted Mozart.

Antonio just said, "ah."

"Shit, where the fuck is the corkscrew?" Mozart grumbled, pushing himself to his feet and retrieving the second bottle of wine that room service had sent up with the pasta.

He watched the singer swaying unsteadily as he tried to line the corkscrew up with the cork. "You should eat," Antonio said.

"Look, I came here to get drunk as I want." He stabbed the corkscrew toward the bottle at a ridiculous angle.  "My house, my rules!"

"That doesn't even make any sense," Antonio said.  "Give it to me, I'll do it."

Mozart passed the bottle and the corkscrew to Antonio, who briefly considered hiding them and cutting Mozart off before he got any tipsier.  By the time he had the bottle open and refilled Mozart's glass as shallowly as possible, though, his host had sunk into another sulk.

"Are you okay?"

Mozart started, looking up at him despondently.  "What are we going to do about our girlfriend, Antonio?"

 _Our_ girlfriend?  Maybe Mozart was even drunker than he looked.  He'd had about three-quarters of the bottle of rosé and his cheeks were turning pink, but surely someone like Wolfgang Mozart wouldn't be that much of a lightweight.  Antonio slid his fresh glass to the far side of the coffee table.  "Want me to get you some water?"

"You... are so thoughtful," sighed Mozart.  He leaned toward Antonio, putting his hand on his thigh again just as he had done in the limo.  "Thanks for coming over.  I really needed you here," he said, listing a little closer than normal conversation required.

And on an impulse that he was sure he would regret later, Antonio closed the distance between them and kissed him.

Mozart jumped away the moment their lips touched, staring at Antonio with wide, clear eyes and scampering to the far side of the couch like he'd been electrocuted.  Suddenly he wasn't swaying in his seat anymore.  His gaze lingered on Antonio's lips as he stammered, "Did- did you mean to do that?"

"I don't know," Antonio said, but it was impossibly unconvincing.  "Yes," he admitted.

Mozart slid a little closer on the couch, moving like he was approaching a testy rattlesnake.  "Are you drunk?  Are you- you wanted to-?"

"If it's going to be such a problem-"

"No, no!  I just didn't realize-" Mozart grabbed Antonio by the arm and tugged him closer.  "Okay, okay, let's- here, do it again."

It was a tentative kiss, as though each of them expected the other to pull away at any moment.  Mozart was still gripping his arm; Antonio cupped the back of his neck and coaxed him closer, meeting Mozart's tongue with his own.  God, it had been such a long time since Antonio had been kissed.  He didn't realize how much he had been missing it until Mozart caught his lower lip in his mouth and ran his tongue along it, eliciting an embarrassing grunt from Antonio and sending a pulse of heat right down to his groin.  Of course Wolfgang Mozart was this good at making out.  He thought back to all the classes he had spent staring at one of the pictures from an old photoshoot he had taped to his binder, following the shape of Mozart's lips with his eyes and imagining that he might come back for him one day like the leading man at the end of a romantic comedy.  What would that awkward boy think if he could have seen this moment in his future?  What would the awkward man he had been a few hours ago have done if he had known that this was how getting into Mozart's limo would end?  Despite his old crush and his obsession with the band - or maybe because of it - only a day ago he would have named Wolfgang Mozart as the most obnoxious person he'd ever had the misfortune to meet.  Obnoxious, maybe, but an infinitely gifted kisser.

Mozart broke away for a moment, breathing shallowly and keeping his forehead pressed to Antonio's as he scooted closer on the couch.  His fingertips hovered by Antonio's hip for a moment.  "Can I-?"

"Anything," rasped Antonio.  His breath came in a hiss when Mozart swung a leg around his waist and settled himself in Antonio's lap, the hardening bulge in his pajama pants pressing against the base of Antonio's stomach.  Oh, it had been way too long.

When Mozart started kissing him again, Antonio grabbed both of his hips and pulled them against him as tightly as he could, grinding his own erection up to meet Mozart's in a slow, steady rhythm.  Spots of color were already exploding behind his lids as Mozart worked his hands under his sweater and began pulling it up over Antonio's head.  They broke apart for the time it took him to remove it, Antonio only releasing Mozart's waist long enough to lift his arms.  He took advantage of the moment to lean forward and suck at that spot on the side of Mozart's neck, the bitter taste of cologne filling his mouth right away.  He grinned against Mozart's throat, grazing his lips and beard down to his collarbone until Mozart pushed him back against the armrest and buried his own face in Antonio's neck, the hot bursts of his breath tickling him as he kissed his way up to Antonio's ear.  Mozart was fumbling with the buttons of Antonio's dress shirt with one hand and steadying himself against the couch with the other, the scrape of his teeth and warmth of his wet tongue against Antonio's earlobe making him punctuate the movement of his hips with random uncontrollable thrusts.

Antonio's shirt was halfway unbuttoned and probably rumpled beyond any hope for dignity when Mozart's fingers grazed over his undershirt and he broke away to say, "Jesus, how many shirts do you fucking wear?"

"Fuck off, I've seen how you dress," Antonio answered, embarrassingly breathless.

With a wicked grin, Mozart trailed his hands down to Antonio's belt and began unfastening it as slowly and deliberately as possible.  "The real question is... is Signor Salieri a top or a bottom?"

In answer, Antonio grabbed the back of one of Mozart's knees in one hand and planted the other in the middle of his chest, shoving him back onto the couch while keeping their hips as close as he could.  He knelt between Mozart's thighs, wantonly grinding against him until Mozart let out a ragged gasp.  "Oh, l'etero!" he teased.  "Who knew?"  He caught the back of Antonio's head in one hand and dragged him down for a sloppy kiss, tracing a path down his torso with the other.  He seized the front of Antonio's undershirt and untucked it, pulling it high enough to access Antonio's bare stomach, his fingertips slowly following the trail of hair until they were toying with the waistband of his trousers.

Antonio abruptly wrapped his hand around Mozart's cock through the pajama pants, smirking when he moaned in surprise and twisted his hips up against his palm.  He let go, running his hand down the length of it and cupping his balls as he leaned forward, letting his lips hover just above Mozart's until the singer grunted and closed the space between them, their teeth clashing together in breathless desperation.  Mozart fell back onto the couch, gasping, his arms draped around Antonio's neck.  "Oh, you're one of those, huh?" he panted.  "You're going to have me screaming."

He was scrambling for a better response than 'hopefully' when he heard the extremely unexpected sound of the refrigerator door opening about fifteen feet away.  Antonio jerked upright, accidentally leaning a hand on Mozart's ribcage in the process and eliciting a dramatic grunt.

Mozart's assistant was standing in the kitchen, inspecting the contents of a to-go box.  The sudden lack of gasping and salacious comments must have been jarring; he looked up and met Antonio's horrified stare.  "Oh, don't mind me," Jean-Paul said.  He withdrew Antonio's keys from his pocket and dropped them on the counter.  "Your cat's doing fine.  I'll leave these here for you."

Mortified, Antonio sat back on the couch, tugging at his shirt in an aimless attempt to either tuck it back in or button it back up.  He gave up and dragged a sleeve across his mouth, wondering if his own lips looked as puffy and wet as Mozart's.  His sweater was inside-out in a little heap on the floor nearby, his belt lying just beyond that.  He pressed a palm to his throbbing forehead; it felt like all the blood in his body was rushing back up to fill his burning cheeks.

"Is that Jean-Paul?" Mozart asked, completely unperturbed.  He lifted himself up on one elbow, using the fingers of his other hand to comb his hair into place.

"Just got in," Jean-Paul verified.  "Do you need anything else?"

Mozart winked at Antonio.  "I think I'm all set for tonight."

Antonio was trying to determine whether or not they would still be able to see him if he crawled under the coffee table and waited to die.  How long had Jean-Paul been standing there?  He must have come up by the elevator at least a minute or two ago, long enough to wander over to the kitchen and start rummaging around in the fridge.  How much had he heard?  And why weren't either of them ashamed?  If Antonio had been the one to step out of an elevator into what was obviously a private situation that was none of his business, he would have gone right back down and waited in his car.  It wasn't like there was nothing he could have done in New York City on a Friday night to kill time until he knew his boss was decent again.

Jean-Paul folded a cold slice of pizza in half and took a bite out of the end of it.  He gestured to the far wall with his free hand.  "You guys using that?"  Antonio looked over his shoulder to discover that he was referring to the television.

Mozart grinned mischievously and answered, "Does it look like we're watching TV?"

"I should go," Antonio blurted, snatching up one of his shoes and trying to jam it onto his foot without untying it.

"What?  Why?"  Mozart clambered up onto his knees, his erection bobbing ridiculously in his loose pajama pants.  "Don't go!"

Antonio took a long, slow breath to try to resist the urge to throw his stupid shoe across the room.

"Hey, just come upstairs then!  Would that be better?  If- if you changed your mind about the sex, maybe just keep me company for a while?"

In the kitchen, Jean-Paul clamped the rest of his piece of pizza in his teeth and slid a second slice into the microwave.  Each harsh beep as he set the timer made Antonio flinch.  He gripped his shoe tightly for a long moment, trying to regulate the wave of embarrassment that seemed to be drowning him and filling his lungs, dragging him into the depths.

Mozart slid closer on the couch, placing a tentative hand on Antonio's knee.  "Okay.  I'm sorry.  I'll call you a cab if you want," he mumbled resignedly.

For some reason, that offer was enough to bring him back to his senses.  Antonio shook his head, dropping the shoe back onto the floor and clapping his own hand over Mozart's.  Surely he had already had enough close brushes with sex in the past year that ended in awkwardness or disappointment.  He couldn't let it happen again, not when the person who was willing to sleep with him was Wolfgang Mozart.

Mozart took Antonio's hand in both of his and kissed it, unknowingly recreating that moment when they had met almost twenty years ago.  Antonio watched him wordlessly, his scattered thoughts coming together again as he let Mozart lead him up the staircase and back into that messy, expensive bedroom.  

So his childhood-celebrity-crush-turned-nemesis had stolen his girlfriend, lost her, and somehow settled on Antonio himself a few hours later.  He kept his grip on Mozart's hand until he shut the bedroom door behind them; as soon as they were alone he seized his other wrist and shoved him against the wall with his arms pinned above his head.  A relieved grin bloomed across Mozart's face just before Antonio leaned in and caught him up in a long, slow kiss.  Mozart waited until Antonio broke away for air before murmuring, "So we're still on?  You're going to make me scream?"

Antonio pressed his hips against Mozart's, making sure the rock star was aware of his entire situation.  "Your buddy Jean-Paul won't be able to hear the TV," he answered.


	14. Chapter 14

When Antonio awoke from a stress dream in which Cecilia Weber was trying to break down his apartment door to take back Catstance, he had no idea where he was for a solid minute.  He usually woke up early on Saturday mornings and stayed in bed staring at the ceiling until the sun came up, or turned on his television to drown out the silence.  This morning, he was swaddled in crisp white sheets that felt like silk on his bare skin and the morning sunlight was already filtering through floor-to-ceiling drapes.  Of course, he got another pretty big hint that the night before hadn't all been part of his dream when he noticed that Wolfgang Mozart was sprawled across him, completely naked and sleeping so soundly that he had drooled into Antonio's chest hair.

A subtle buzz from the side table reminded Antonio what it was that woke him. He extended his arm as slowly as possible, taking care not to wake the unconscious celebrity who was using him as a pillow, and retrieved his cell phone.

Four unread texts from Frank and one from Lorenzo.  Had something happened?  He entered his lock code and brought up his inbox as quickly as he could with one hand.  Frank usually texted him a few times a day, but Lorenzo only replied to the group chat for the most part.  And four texts in one night was a little excessive, even for Frank.

Scanning through his conversation history with his brother, Antonio realized what the problem was right away: he had never answered Frank's initial message from Friday afternoon asking how his evening was going.  Frank had texted him again a couple of hours later to make sure he'd gotten home okay, but of course by then Antonio had literally had his hands full and hadn't seen the message.  There were two more texts from this morning, the latter of which was threatening to come over to his apartment and check on him if Antonio didn't answer by lunch.  He quickly typed out a response that he was fine, just busy, and read the single message from Lorenzo to verify that it was also asking if he was alright.  So Frank had gotten nervous and gotten Lorenzo to check up on him too.  Antonio glanced at the faded scars on the inside of his forearm, wishing that his friends didn't have good reason to treat him like a ticking time bomb.

A new message from Frank came in right away, apologizing for panicking and expressing relief that Antonio was okay.  Then a follow-up:  _Did you do anything fun last night?_

Antonio just managed to stop himself from laughing out loud.  He answered,  _You could say that_.

And then, figuring that Frank was going to find out anyway, Antonio held the phone as high as he could and snapped a picture.  There it was, photographic evidence that the embarrassing daydreams that had sustained him throughout most of puberty had suddenly, improbably come true in his late twenties.  He sent the photo to Frank, wondering if it was obvious that the shirtless rock star was only sleeping on his bare chest and not a murder victim.  With the way he had been talking about him for these past few weeks, he could guess which scenario Frank would be more likely to believe.

His brother's response was immediate and unpunctuated:  _WHAT_

And then his screen lit up with an incoming call, the ringtone startling Antonio so badly that he dropped the phone into the bed.  His companion grunted awake, his gaze fixing on Antonio at once and a lazy smile breaking across his face like the sunrise.

"Sorry," Antonio muttered, retrieving the phone and accepting the call.  Bolstered by that smile, though, he put on his most innocent voice and chirped, "Well, good morning, Frank!"

"Antonio- Antonio, _what_ -? Antonio-!" spluttered his brother's voice.

Wolfgang lifted his head, brows knitted together, and whispered, "Frank?  Does he know you're with me?"

"You couldn't just text?  The ringer woke Wolfgang up," Antonio said.  Relief washed over his companion's face at once; it was so endearing that Antonio couldn't resist cupping his stubbly chin in his free hand, running his thumb over his lips.

On the other end of the line, Frank was still struggling to form sentences.  "How- how in the hell did you end up in bed with Wolfgang?"

The singer hoisted himself onto his forearms and squirmed up to Antonio's side.  "Hi Frank!" he called, leaning toward the phone.

"That's... holy shit, Antonio, that was actually Wolfgang."

"He sort of abducted me after work yesterday."

"In a Seraglio!"

"In a limo," Antonio corrected.  "And it... escalated."

"But you're- but he's dating Constance, isn't he?"

"Well-"

Wolfgang appeared to have overheard.  "Can I talk to him?"

Antonio nodded and passed him the phone, relieved that he wasn't going to have to retell the story of the night before while Wolfgang listened in.  How much could he say about what had happened at the karaoke bar without making things awkward?

"Francesco Salieri!" Wolfgang crowed in his fake Italian accent.  He rolled onto his back, his head resting against Antonio's upper arm.  Antonio could just hear the sound of Frank's voice, but couldn't make out individual words.  He tilted his chin until his lips were pressed against the top of Wolfgang's head, his unkempt hair tickling his nose as he breathed.  "I didn't convince him to do anything," Wolfgang was saying.  Beneath the sheets, he trailed the fingers of his free hand over Antonio's bare hip as he added, "He's a big boy, you know."

Antonio dropped his head back onto the pillow as a hot flush spread over his cheeks.  Luckily, Frank's indistinct voice replied immediately, apparently missing the double-meaning behind Wolfgang's comment.  After a moment, Wolfgang meekly said, "I won't," and then, "Because her mom took out a restraining order on me."

A beat of silence, and then Antonio could just hear Frank repeat, "A restraining order?"

"Well, I'm sure you know what she did to Antonio."

He paused for Frank's reply.

"No, because Constance and Antonio never actually broke up either."

Well that was a strange way of looking at it, though it was technically true.  For a long time after he had walked out of the karaoke bar that night, a part of Antonio had held out hope that Constance would show up at his apartment unannounced or be waiting for him outside the office at lunch like nothing had happened.  He hadn't had any way of knowing how much of the distance between them was Constance's choice and how much had been the result of her mother's intervention.  Then again, he and Constance had been good friends for months, only getting romantic in that week between his birthday party and the Divine Libertines concert.  They hadn't officially broken up, but they hadn't officially been a couple either, had they?

Wolfgang rolled back onto his stomach.  "He wants to talk to you again," he said, holding out the phone.

It was barely at Antonio's ear before Frank said, "So Wolfgang's pretty pleased with himself, but I guess he's sincere.  Antonio, are you okay with all this?  I mean, do you want me to give you an excuse to get out of there or anything?"

"I'm fine," Antonio assured him.  "I started it."

That made Wolfgang chuckle.  He pressed his lips against Antonio's shoulder, watching him contentedly through his lashes.

"It was  _your_ idea?" repeated Frank.  "God, Antonio, we must not spend enough time together, because I definitely never thought I'd hear you say something like that.  What were- why did you...?"

"Do you remember-" he cleared his throat. "Do you remember when he came to the boys' home?  Right before they sent me to Long Island?"

"Wolfgang did?"

"They had him sing for us in the gym and he did a photo op.  You were in high school so they didn't make you go."

"Okay, yeah. I think I remember that that happened. Why?"

Antonio looked up at the ceiling, avoiding Wolfgang's eye.  "I had a huge crush on him after that.  For years."

He felt Wolfgang smile against his shoulder, and suddenly his fingers were sliding over Antonio's hip again.

Still staring at the ceiling, Antonio bit back a grin and shook his head.  "I was a senior in high school before I realized he wasn't that great," he said pointedly.

Wolfgang lifted his head with an indignant huff and swatted at his thigh.

"So, what, all that time telling us that we couldn't talk about Wolfgang in front of you and acting like you hated the band, you were just trying to cover up a crush?" asked Frank.

Antonio smirked at Wolfgang before he said, "No, I grew out of the crush a long time ago.  A really long time ago," he added, earning a petulant scowl.  "When he started the Divine Libertines a few years back and I liked their music, that was just a coin- mff! -coincidence."  He widened his eyes at Wolfgang, who, despite his extremely innocent expression, had just closed a hand around his cock under the blankets.

"Always nice to meet a fan," Frank said dryly.  "Hey, you guys aren't serious, are you?  This is just... I mean, it's great if you are, but... this came out of nowhere, Antonio."

Smiling impishly, Wolfgang pulled the sheet over his head with his free hand; a moment later Antonio could feel his warm breath ghosting over his burgeoning erection.  He inhaled slowly, trying to focus on what his brother was saying on the other end of the phone.  

"Okay, so you thought he was cute when you were in high school, that's fine, and you're a fan of the band, that's fine, but at lunch yesterday you rolled your eyes every time Lorenzo said his name!"

"Hm-" Antonio said, hoping it sounded like he was considering Frank's words and not moaning at the delicate touch of Wolfgang's tongue.  "Ah- I- _uh_!  Can we talk about it later?"  He felt Wolfgang's breathy laugh and spent a moment imagining what would happen if he kicked him in the face.

There was a pause on the other end of the phone, and then Frank said, "Oh my god, Antonio, are you guys fucking right now?"

"What?" he yelped.  "Ung- ah!  No!  No I'm just- uh!  I... ah!  Fuck!" he panted.  He reached beneath the sheet and seized a handful of Wolfgang's hair, trying to hold his head still long enough to get out a convincing sentence. 

"Right," said Frank.  "Well, when you're done, please tell Wolfgang that I didn't need to hear this.  Have a good time.  Love you, kid."

At that point Antonio was too far gone to answer.  He let the phone slide out of his hand and onto the bed, keeping his grip on Wolfgang's hair and bucking his hips in rhythm with the motion of his head.  God, he was good at this.  He could already feel the hot tension building at the base of his stomach, pulsing brighter and brighter with each stroke of Wolfgang's lips, the wet heat of his tongue. He kicked the sheet away, smoothing Wolfgang's hair where the static electricity had mussed it and coaxing him to move a little faster, then faster still.  His own movements became uneven, his breathing ragged; Wolfgang caught his eye and released him with a final flick of his tongue, continuing the same rhythm with his hand as he trailed kisses up Antonio's stomach.  Antonio dragged him impatiently up the rest of the way, catching his mouth in a hungry kiss but pulling away at the taste of morning breath and precum.  Instead, he grazed his lips along Wolfgang's throat, nipping at a pulse point until Wolfgang's breath hitched.  It was his low hum of pleasure when Wolfgang began grinding his own erection against Antonio's thigh that finally put him over the edge, and the knowledge that this was the same voice the whole nation heard on the radio, a voice that made fans scream and albums fly off the shelves.  That famous voice, but in a soft moan that was meant only for him.

He gritted his teeth as he came, his grip on Wolfgang's hair tightening involuntarily until he heard him grunt in pain.  Wolfgang peeled one of Antonio's hands away from his head and pressed a kiss to his palm as the waves of it subsided, watching him with that same sleepy, smug expression until Antonio was able to breathe normally again.  He leaned down until their foreheads were pressed together and murmured, "We'll make Jean-Paul wash these sheets."

Antonio chuckled, cupping Wolfgang's face in both hands.  He was acutely aware of Wolfgang's erection which was still pressed against his thigh, but when he started to reach for it Wolfgang pulled away.  "We've got to get cleaned up!" he said, clambering over Antonio's legs and out of the bed.  

"Why?" asked Antonio.  He sat up reluctantly, taking care to keep the sheets away from the mess on his stomach: no need to make Jean-Paul's life any harder if he really was going to have to do the laundry.

"As much as I'd enjoy rolling around in bed with you for the rest of the day, I promised to bring Allie lunch," Wolfgang said.  He leaned against the door to the bathroom, looking Antonio up and down for a moment with that impish smile.

"Allie?  Allie, as in pop sensation Aloysia?  Allie, as in Constance's sister?"

Wolfgang merely nodded before disappearing into the bathroom.  Antonio heard the shower come on and raked his fingers through his hair, wrinkling his nose at the combination of stale gel and dried sweat.  It would be nice to get cleaned up, he told himself resignedly, even though he would have preferred to stay in this moment for the rest of the weekend.  Eventually, he was going to have to go home to his crappy apartment in Jersey and figure out what the hell had happened last night.  Maybe it was better to begin rationalizing it all now before he started to get attached to the idea of having Wolfgang Mozart as a lover.

"Well?"

Antonio looked up to discover that Wolfgang was lounging in the bathroom doorway again, still just as naked and just as hard as he had been a few minutes ago.  "What?"

"What do you think?  You want me to deal with this by myself, or are you coming?"

"I already came," Antonio quipped, but he practically launched himself out of the bed and into the bathroom.

"And once was enough?" Wolfgang shot back, swatting at his ass as he passed.  "You've changed since last night."

 

 

 

After a shower that lasted so long it seemed like they could have drained the Hudson, Wolfgang tossed a hotel towel over Antonio's head and started rummaging frantically through his drawers again, his own towel affixed low around his waist.  As Antonio dried off, Wolfgang was pulling out a seemingly endless supply of dark shirts and rejecting them one by one; meanwhile, Antonio could only step into the same trousers he had worn to work the day before.  His undershirt and button-down had made it up to the bedroom, but he found his sweater folded neatly next to his belt, briefcase, and keys downstairs.  He shot a dark look at Jean-Paul's closed bedroom door before he pulled the sweater over his head.

"No chance you brought a change of clothes?' Wolfgang called as he descended from the landing.

"I don't usually lose my clothes between home and work."  Antonio stood, tugging his sweater into place.  "If you don't want Aloysia to see us together, I can just go home.  Catstance will need to eat before too long anyway."

"Did you just say Cat-stance?" Wolfgang asked, pausing at the bottom of the stairs with one foot in the air. 

"My cat," said Antonio self-consciously.

" _Cat_ -stance?"

"She was a birthday present.  Look, if you're going to be insufferable about this-"

Mozart put up both hands in self-defense.  "Fine, okay, there's nothing weird about your cat's name!  My mistake!"

Antonio scowled, jerking the laces of his shoe a little tighter than necessary.

"Hey, alright," said Mozart.  "If it makes you feel better, I used to have a pet bird, and I named it Star because it was a starling."

Antonio wasn't willing to admit that he already knew that from an old Nickelodeon magazine interview.  He rolled his eyes as he yanked at the cuff of his sock.

"And now if I get another one, I can call it Birdtonio Starlieri."

"Forget it," Antonio snapped, springing to his feet, "I'll just go. There's a PATH at Christopher Street."

Mozart bounded across the room, blocking his exit.  "I'm teasing!" he protested, seizing one of Antonio's hands in both of his.  "So what, so your cat has a funny name?  That doesn't mean I want you to leave!"  He tucked the hand under his chin, watching Antonio earnestly until he finally looked up and met his gaze.  "Do you want me to tell Allie to order takeout?  We can go back upstairs."

"No, don't do that. I don't- I just don't think I should go," Antonio muttered.  "She didn't invite me."

"Are you kidding?  She loves having people visit!  She's practically on house arrest!  She's doesn't know who might sneak a story out to the press, so she has to see the same friends over and over again.  She'll love you!"  He freed one hand and smoothed his fingers through Antonio's damp hair.  

Antonio thought of pop sensation Aloysia, a composed, poised figure who never made talk show appearances, who could only be seen laughing in stage door videos taken by fans, and who kept her own life and views as far out of the public eye as possible.  He couldn't imagine her loving anything except another hit single in the charts.

"How about this?  If you feel weird at any point and want to go, just tell me it's time to feed your cat.  I'll offer to give you a ride, and then I'll take you home or we can come back here, whatever you want."

"Fine," Antonio ceded, pulling his hand free from Wolfgang's and taking a step back.  On the other side of the living room, the doors of the private elevator were sliding open to reveal Jean-Paul with a loaded burlap grocery bag hanging from one arm.

"Ah!" Wolfgang cried, "Did you get everything?

"I got the subs.  They didn't have peppermint tea at the bodega, but I found pickles, almond butter, pistachios, epsom salt, Tums, and-" he pulled out a Lays bag "-dill pickle flavored potato chips."

"She'll freak!"

"We're taking the Seraglio, right?" asked Jean-Paul.

Wolfgang shot a knowing grin at Antonio, then explained, "It won't attract as much attention as the limo.  Allie doesn't want the press to think we're back together."

But even the Seraglio wasn't incognito enough to make it unnoticed through the group of paparazzi who were lounging on the sidewalk outside pop sensation Aloysia's hotel.  Wolfgang and Jean-Paul had obviously done this before: Jean-Paul was partially disguised in aviators and newsboy cap, whereas Wolfgang, without any warning, threw himself flat across the back seat when they were still a block away from the hotel.  He winked up at Antonio, resting his head on his thigh, before grabbing a jacket that had been slung over the back of the seat and pulling it over his face.

"Should I-?"

"They won't take your picture if they don't recognize you," Wolfgang said, his voice muffled.  "Just don't roll down the window and start yelling that you spent last night in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's bed, okay?"

"Or that he has his head in my lap right now?"

"Ooh, don't tempt me," he teased.  "Maybe on the way back."

"Maybe when you're in your bedroom with the door shut," Jean-Paul shot over his shoulder.

Wolfgang slid the jacket low enough to peer up at Antonio with one eye.  "He's jealous," he whispered before throwing the jacket over his head again.

Jean-Paul caught Antonio's gaze in the rearview mirror and rolled his eyes.  Antonio couldn't help but wonder what kinds of ridiculous things Mozart's assistant had seen and heard during the course of his job.  He'd waited tables for a while himself and been disgusted with it immediately, and that had only been part-time.  Being the assistant to a flighty celebrity must have been hell.  How much did Jean-Paul get paid for all this?  When did he have time for himself?

Antonio leaned away from the window as the Seraglio pulled into the garage beneath the hotel.  The paparazzi were on their feet immediately, craning their necks to try to see through the tinted back windows.  One person lifted their camera hesitantly; Antonio wondered if they might know enough to recognized Jean-Paul in the drivers' seat and shielded the side of his face with one hand just in case.  They couldn't have been exposed to them for more than a few seconds, but Antonio still let out a long sigh of relief when they were in the clandestine safety of the parking garage.  Wolfgang sprang up at once, pushing the jacket onto the floor and unbuckling his seatbelt before Jean-Paul had even found an empty space.  He seized Antonio's arm and draped it around his shoulder, saying, "I'm so glad you came!"

"Sure, visiting our ex-girlfriend's pop star sister is a great move for the morning after we hook up."

"Constance isn't our ex!" Wolfgang insisted.  

"Wolfgang-"

"Listen," he interrupted, "if Cecilia steals the keys to your apartment, that isn't the same thing as your landlord tearing up your lease, is it?"

"What are you talking about?"

"No!  You'd just go to the super and get new keys!" he went on, obviously proud of his metaphor.

Antonio caught Jean-Paul eyeing him in the rearview mirror again. How much did Mozart's assistant know about his boss's personal life?  A worse thought struck him: had Jean-Paul ever walked in on Wolfgang and Constance the way he had walked in on the two of them the night before?  What if he was sitting there trying to sort out what the hell was going on between the three of them?  He pulled his arm off of Wolfgang's shoulders and unbuckled his own seatbelt.

The hotel was not what Antonio would have expected after spending the night in Wolfgang's sleek penthouse suite.  The three of them rode up in an elevator which, unlike the private elevator at Wolfgang's hotel, stopped at a couple different floors to let people on and off.  Jean-Paul had positioned himself in front of Wolfgang, who was now wearing the aviators and cap as though that was all it took to make him unrecognizable to the casual observer; the first time the doors opened, Wolfgang pulled Antonio closer and ducked slightly behind him as well.  A businesswoman in a sharp gray suit glanced curiously in their direction before turning back to her Blackberry, but no one else even gave them a second look.  They were alone on the elevator again when it reached the highest floor.  They slunk down the heavily-carpeted hallway, Wolfgang eyeing each door they passed as though he expected it to spring open to reveal a wall of paparazzi with cameras at the ready.

It was Aloysia herself who answered Wolfgang's knock.  Antonio was momentarily taken aback by her appearance: here was that famous face, her enormous dark eyes fixed directly on him, her button nose wrinkling slightly; but her dark hair was swept up into a cheap plastic clip on top of her head, she was wearing a white blouse dotted with food stains across the bust, and there wasn't a stitch of makeup anywhere on her face.  The pale skin of her pregnant belly was visible in a strip where her shirt didn't quite meet her baggy gray sweatpants.  The baby bump was about the size of a throw pillow.  How long had it been since the day Constance had learned her sister was pregnant and canceled their weekend together?  It had been right around his birthday, late September, which meant Aloysia was probably five months along by now, assuming she told her family as soon as she knew.  Antonio hadn't been around pregnant people enough to judge whether or not the size of Aloysia's stomach or the dark circles beneath her eyes were normal for this stage.  Her thin brows drew together as she studied him, and she said, "You're Antonio, right?  Stanzi's last boyfriend?"

Suddenly flustered, he just nodded and looked to Wolfgang for support.

"Have you talked to your mom?"

Aloysia rolled her eyes and stepped away from the door.  "The restraining order?"

The three of them filed into the room, Antonio letting Wolfgang lead him by one hand without protest.  The difference between the room Wolfgang was renting and Aloysia's was a shock, especially considering how much more famous Syncopated Heart was than any of the Divine Libertines' singles.  It was a simple space, a corner view of the bustling street below its only luxury.  There was an area for the kitchen, an eat-in bar with two tall chairs, a couch, a television, and, behind a free-standing divider, the unmade bed.  The whole place was barely the size of Wolfgang's bedroom back at the penthouse.  Either Aloysia was a lot poorer than Antonio would have expected, or she was a lot better at conserving her fortune than Wolfgang.

 "Why can't Constance move out?" Wolfgang was asking.  "She's a grown woman!"

Aloysia had taken the burlap grocery bag from Jean-Paul and was already opening the dill pickle chips.  "Not everybody hates their parents, Wolfgang."

"I don't  _hate_ my dad, he just-"

"Wolfgang, I swear to god, if we spend another day talking about your dad I'm going to start squeezing out this baby just to shut you up."

"Fine," Wolfgang huffed, throwing himself onto the couch.  Aloysia joined him, still clutching the bag of chips, while Jean-Paul slid onto one of the barstools.  He seemed deeply engrossed in something on his phone.

Antonio drifted over to the other chair by the bar but didn't quite dare to take a seat.  He raked his hair out of his eyes self-consciously.  It was mostly dry from the shower, but since he hadn't been home he hadn't been able to gel it back, and it was obvious just how long and shaggy it really was.  He gathered it into a stubby ponytail at the nape of his neck, wishing he had a rubber band or something to keep it there and out of his face. 

"Well, the restraining order just says you can't go to the bar, doesn't it?" Aloysia was asking.  "So if she happened to be somewhere and you happened to be there, nobody could do anything about it."

"I guess."

"Alright, remember 'The Managers', that movie that Joey filmed where they used a bunch of your music?"

"The movie about how horrible it is to work with vain rock stars where Joey Lange plays the asshole lead singer of a band called 'the Candid Charmers'?  And all their songs just happen to be Divine Libertines tracks?  Yeah, kind of hard to forget that one.  I thought my lawyers stopped it."

"Nope, it opens on Christmas eve.  Joey sent me a bunch of invitations to the premier."

"Allie, I'm not going to the premier of that stupid movie."

"Not even if my sisters are there, and only one doesn't have a date?"

Wolfgang scowled at the faded carpet.

"Come on," said Aloysia.  "It'll piss off Joey and my mom, plus you'll be seen in public with Constance.  The press will be there, asking all sorts of questions about your personal life and your opinion of the film."

Antonio glanced over at the minibar.  If he was going to sit here and witness pop sensation Aloysia helping the guy he'd slept with last night get back together with the woman he loved, it would be a lot easier to do with a tiny bottle of wine in his hand.  He watched Aloysia shove another handful of the potato chips into her mouth, leaving crumbs all over her lips, and realized that he hadn't had any food all morning.  According to the time on Jean-Paul's phone, it was a little past noon.  Would now be a good time to announce that he had to feed his cat?

He must have shifted uncomfortably on his feet, for Wolfgang looked up suddenly and said, "Antonio!" as if he'd forgotten he was even there.  He patted the empty space next to him on the couch and Antonio hesitantly joined him.  "How many tickets do you have?" he asked.  "I'll go if Antonio can come too."

Antonio almost sprang right back up off the couch.  He gripped the armrest instead and stammered, "No- no, I can't walk a red carpet."

"It'll be fun!" insisted Wolfgang.  "How many tickets did he send, Al?"

"Eight, I think," Aloysia said.  "Well, four, and each ticket has a plus-one.  Joey volunteered to be my plus-one.  I guess he thought if I bring each of my sisters, then everyone would have a date but me and he'd be able to trick me into getting back together with him."

"What a dick!  So how many of the tickets are you using already?"

Aloysia ticked off the names on her fingers: "There's me, I guess, Sophie and her girlfriend, Constance, and that's it.  Josie volunteered to stay at the bar with mom, so that leaves my plus-one, Constance's plus-one, and one more ticket with its own plus-one.  The more people I bring that aren't Joey, the stupider he'll look."

"That's four!" Wolfgang repeated.  "So Antonio could bring Frank!"

"Frank?"

"His brother, my guitarist in the band.  You've seen him onstage."

To Antonio's deep surprise, Aloysia's eyes lit up.  "Oh!  The guitarist!  I should have guessed he was your brother.  Yeah, he should definitely come."

"Could I invite Nannerl as my plus-one?"

"Sure," Aloysia chuckled.  "Constance can count as mine."

"Let's do it!  Jean-Paul, can you put this on the calendar?"

"Wolfgang, I don't think I-" Antonio began, but Wolfgang had leaped to his feet and dropped a dramatic kiss onto his forehead.  

He wrinkled his nose when he broke away, pushing Antonio's hair out of his eyes.  "We might need to tame this Forrest Gump thing you've got going on."

"I really don't think I'd fit in on a red carpet," Antonio said.  "Frank might, but I'm-"

"You're trying to wiggle out of it so you can lay around your apartment feeling sorry for yourself. I know," said Wolfgang, dropping into Antonio's lap and slinging an arm around his shoulders.  "Al, did you know this guy has a cat named Catstance?"

"Wolfgang!"

"That's cute," Aloysia said noncommittally.  She was scrounging around in the bag of groceries again.  "Did you bring the sandwiches?"

"Wrapped in the paper," Wolfgang confirmed.

Aloysia withdrew four parcels from the bag.  "Which one is mine?  The one that says 'Reuben'?

"Yep, mine's the honey mustard," said Wolfgang, taking two of the sandwiches from her.  "That sriracha one is for Jean-Paul."  As Aloysia was getting up to take one of the sandwiches to Jean-Paul over by the bar, Wolfgang passed the final parcel to Antonio with his mischievous grin and murmured, "You'll never guess what we got for you."

"Italian, probably?" Antonio asked, catching a glimpse of the writing on the label.

Wolfgang wiggled his hips in Antonio's lap and leaned in until his breath tickled his ear: "Italian  _sausage_."

"Has anyone ever told you that you're a horrible person?" Antonio huffed as he snatched the sub out of Wolfgang's grip.

"Maybe, but I'm a good lay."

Antonio rolled his eyes as he unwrapped the end of his sandwich and peeled back the bread to inspect its contents.  "You're lucky I eat meat," he grumbled; he didn't realize that there was a double-meaning to his words until Wolfgang let out one of his ridiculous giggles.  Antonio finally gave in to his urge to shove him off his lap and back onto the couch: the last thing he needed today was to end up with a boner in pop sensation Aloysia's hotel room.

"The real question," Aloysia said as she came back over to the empty spot on the couch, "is what I'm supposed to do at the premier.  If I don't go, the press will tear me apart.  I'm already the ice queen who got pregnant and dumped and went home to her mom in disgrace.  If I don't show up to the premier of his damn movie, especially since it's right here in the city and he sent me all the free tickets, they'll never shut up about it.  It'll be the 'syncopated tart' stuff all over again."

"I could pretend we're dating if you want," said Wolfgang.  "It'd keep me having to hide under a jacket every time we pass the paparazzi that camp out in front of the parking garage, too."

"No thanks," Aloysia said quickly.  

Antonio chuckled into his sandwich.

"Fine," Wolfgang said.  "Well, what about Antonio or Frank, then?  Either of them could walk you down the red carpet."

"I don't think pretending to be in a new relationship six months after Joey dumped me is going to stop them calling me a tart," Aloysia pointed out.

"The best way to paint Joey Lange as the jerk in the relationship would be to show off your pregnancy and the fact that he's not with you," suggested Antonio.  "Talk show hosts would eat that up."

"Ooh, like Natalie Portman in Venice!  If I look nice, but not decadent, and I show up with this belly, my sisters, and some friends... that's perfect!"

"You need a good dress," said Wolfgang.  "Antonio might need a little makeover too."

"Can you pass me my phone?  I'll text my shopper," Aloysia offered.  Antonio retrieved her phone from the coffee table and held it out to her.  She met his eye as she took it.  "What are your measurements?  I'll have her grab a few things for you, too."

"Uh-" Antonio hesitated, not sure he wanted to admit what his size was to pop sensation Aloysia and the lead singer of the Divine Libertines.

Wolfgang grabbed the collar of his shirt and flipped it inside-out until he found the tag, nearly strangling Antonio in the process.  "Here you go," he said, dragging Antonio across his lap by the neck until the tag was in Aloysia's line of sight.  "Want me to check his pants, too?"

Antonio ripped Wolfgang's hands away and sat back up, straightening his collar.  "A new outfit isn't going to-"

"Oh, shut up, it's already decided and you're walking the red carpet with us," Wolfgang interrupted.  "Come on, it's just one day.  And how do you think Frank will feel if he misses out on this just because you wouldn't let me buy you something cute to wear?"

"What about a tailored suit?" suggested Aloysia.  "Like a jacket with a good lining and a really nice cut.  That way you can wear it to work, too."

Antonio let out a long, slow sigh.  Well-tailored suits weren't cheap.  "Fine," he ceded.  "I'll go.  But only for Frank's sake."  And to get a free suit.

Wolfgang leaned back, appraising Antonio like he suddenly thought he was Stacy London.  "Which shopper are you texting, Al?  That punky one with the rocker hair and all the piercings?"

"Yeah, Claire.  She works at a tattoo parlor during the week."

A wicked grin broke out across Wolfgang's face, an expression that was the complete opposite of the smile with which he had awakened that morning when his head was on Antonio's chest.  "Since she doesn't know Antonio, why don't we go shopping with her?  She can give me tattoo advice, and..." he took Antonio's face in his hands and tilted his head to one side, "And I think Antonio would look really cute with an earring."


	15. Chapter 15

"What's going on?  Why isn't the track playing?"

Antonio crossed his arms and leaned back against the padded wall of the recording booth.  The Divine Libertines were assembled in the studio, most of them fiddling with their phones while the sound engineer fumbled frantically with the recording equipment. Lorenzo was at Antonio's side, mirroring his stance, the look of disgust obvious on his face even in the dim booth.  It was more than a little awkward that when the CEO finally decided to drop by the studio to see how their expensive commercial for the Kia Figaro was faring, the engineer had suddenly lost the track.  At best, it made them seem deeply unorganized; at worst, it looked like they hadn't gotten anything done at all.

The truth was, they really hadn't gotten much done since Lorenzo had been assigned the Figaro commercial.  Antonio had taken to lingering around the studio now that things had gotten  _friendlier_ between him and Wolfgang Mozart, which gave him a front-row seat to the shitshow.  The jingle itself was already good, even better than the song they'd written for the Seraglio commercial, but making progress each day was like pulling teeth.  He would have compared it to herding cats, but Wolfgang was the only real troublemaker.  He showed up late, refused to write any changes down or inform his bandmates of them, and spent a significant amount of time wandering right out of the studio to whisper filthy things into Antonio's ear in the booth.  It was like herding one cat - one horny tomcat with a short attention span.  On one hand, it was painful to watch his best friend struggling to keep his calm whenever his marketing career started flashing before his eyes; on the other hand, the longer it took this commercial to be finished, the longer it would be until Lorenzo applied for a transfer and moved to Philadelphia to be with Stephanie.  There were some nights where secondhand stress kept Antonio up later than the pain from his healing earlobe.  

"Lorenzo, what is this bullshit?" Joe demanded.  From the other side of the booth, Antonio could see flashing lights where the equipment should have shown track information.  The sound engineer had dived out of her chair and was crawling around under the console to verify that everything was plugged in correctly.

Lorenzo threw up his hands. "Sorry, Joe.  I was told this was what you wanted."

"What I wanted?" Joe repeated.  "Alright, alright, stop all this!"

The sound engineer froze, eyeing Joe guiltily from her position on the floor.  Inside the booth, a few of the Divine Libertines lifted their gaze from their phones.  Even from the far wall of the booth, Antonio didn't need his intimate knowledge of Wolfgang Mozart to see that he was fuming.

"Why don't you ask Rosenberg?" the singer spat, approaching the glass and glaring directly at the CEO.  "He was messing with the equipment when Lorenzo got here this morning.  Apparently you don't tolerate hearing a prerecorded track during a rehearsal!"

"I don't tolerate recordings?  What in the world...?" Joe spun around, scanning the assembled employees.  "Antonio!" he said, "What is this shit?  I feel like I'm tripping out."

"It's unacceptable," agreed Antonio, catching Wolfgang's eye over Joe's shoulder and giving him a reassuring nod.

"Go find Rosenberg and tell him that I want to see him," Joe instructed.  "We're going to get to the bottom of this nonsense."

Antonio touched Lorenzo's arm as he passed him, earning a wry smile.  Since Stephanie had moved to the other office, he had to admit that it had been harder to keep their friendship as healthy as it had been only a month ago.  They still had lunch together every day, with Wolfgang taking the seat Stephanie had once filled, but if Lorenzo wasn't talking business with Frank and Wolfgang, his attention was on his phone where he was constantly exchanging texts with Stephanie.  She always seemed to have some project going on that cut into her free time, which resulted in Lorenzo spending every weekend at her place in Philly instead of her ever coming to New York to stay with Lorenzo and see her friends.  Antonio couldn't even remember the last time he had launched Pokémon Go on his phone.  What would he do with himself once Lorenzo actually moved away?  Would his old friend become just another voice in the group chat the way Stephanie had done?  Would he too suddenly be so busy that he couldn't make the commute to New York to see the Salieri boys?

But just as Frank had come into his life in time to help distract him from losing Constance, part of the emptiness from Lorenzo's withdrawal was being filled by Wolfgang Mozart, the lead singer of the Divine Libertines, former tween heartthrob and Antonio's childhood celebrity crush.  It wasn't uncommon for him to come home at the end of the day and find a package waiting on the landing outside his apartment door: the first day, it had been an expensive automatic cat feeder that he could trigger through an app on his phone; a few days later his fancy suit for the upcoming premier of Joey Lange's new movie arrived.  When he had gotten off work last Friday, Wolfgang had been waiting with Jean-Paul in the limo to abduct him again.  They had started out at the penthouse, but Saturday evening when Antonio had insisted on returning home to check on Catstance (despite the automatic feeder) Wolfgang had invited himself along.  He had tried to persuade them to drop him off at the curb, but Wolfgang had clambered out of the car after him, sent Jean-Paul away, and followed him into the freight elevator and up to his shabby, tiny studio apartment.  To his relief, Wolfgang had declared that it was adorable and immediately made himself at home on the bed.  He'd spotted Antonio's new suit in the wardrobe and had him try it on, only to pull it off of him a few minutes later.

Also a relief: Frank found the whole thing between his little brother and his boss hilarious.  It seemed that none of them had said anything to Lorenzo, who was too distracted by his phone and his floundering commercial to comment on Wolfgang's sudden presence at their lunch table each day.  Three weeks ago, Lorenzo would have been the first person Antonio texted upon waking up in a penthouse suite with a naked Wolfgang Mozart sprawled across him.  It was hard not to resent Stephanie's hold over him sometimes.

He found Rosenberg in his office, drumming his fingers on his desk and smirking at the doorway as though he was waiting for someone to approach him.  "Good afternoon, Tony!" he said cheerily.

"Rosenberg," he answered, stepping into the office.  "Joe is downstairs asking what happened to the prerecorded track they were working on for the Figaro commercial."

"Well, simply remind him that traditionally he wouldn't allow a prerecorded track during a rehearsal when the entire band is down there and being paid for their time!"

"And he said that that's unacceptable," Antonio replied.

Rosenberg shot him an incredulous look, popping up out of his chair and closing the office door behind Antonio.  "Tony, what are you doing?  Do you want me to fail?"

"Do I want you to fail?  Fail at what?"

"At getting those punks out of our office!  At putting an end to this obsession with hiring teenyboppers to sell cars!"

Antonio's brows shot up despite himself.  He had almost forgotten about all that effort Rosenberg had put into derailing Stephanie's Seraglio commercial.  Of course, it had all ended up being useless, but this time... this time, if Rosenberg did manage to slow down the production of Lorenzo's Figaro commercial, he was also delaying the day Lorenzo moved out of Antonio's life for good.  It probably wouldn't get very far, but it might help.

Rosenberg went over to stand behind his desk chair, leaning on it and frowning in thought.  "You know, you're right, Tony, you're absolutely right," he started saying.  "You might have just saved me from getting us both into a mess.  We shouldn't be so- so obvious about it.  Remember what that kid said to me the last time I tried to reign in one of his wasteful rehearsals?  The- the thing about notes and retweets?"

"He asked how many twitter followers you have, and he said we were nothing but suits," Antonio remembered, biting back a smirk.  He had been furious then, but now, mingled with the memories of the suit-related comments Wolfgang had made the weekend before in his apartment, there was something funny about it.

"I have plenty of twitter followers," said Rosenberg defensively.  "Maybe not as many as Mozart, but I have enough to make some noise.  And I've been doing some research!  Do you know that his fans thought he sold out when he did Seraglio commercial?  Not all of them, but enough.  They don't know that he's doing another commercial yet.  When Kia started putting ads on the Divine Libertines fan forum they freaked out.  They started a boycott."

"Seriously?" Antonio asked.  He tried to hide the amusement in his voice when he asked, "You joined a Divine Libertines fan forum?"

"Tony, I would do anything to preserve this company's dignity," Rosenberg answered gravely.

"Of course."

"So you're with me?"

Antonio nodded.  "Sure. You're saying the Figaro commercial is an affront to his fans.  That they'll never forgive him."

"The scandal is so close!" Rosenberg said.  "It just needs a little push.  A rallying cry."  He picked up his phone, spent a few seconds typing, and then showed Antonio his screen.  A single tweet insulting the Divine Libertines for doing a second commercial followed by '#toomanynotes'.  "I'll spread the news on the forums.  If we can start infighting among the fans- and even the rest of the band...!"

"Infighting among the band?  You'd have to bribe them!" Antonio scoffed.  He wasn't so sure about the drummer or the bassist, but he couldn't imagine Frank ever turning on Wolfgang.

"If necessary.  And when the fruit is ripe, we'll see what Joe has to say about this ridiculous commercial."  He nodded, dropping his phone into his lapel pocket.  "You can count on me, Tony."

Antonio just shrugged.  It was probably one of Rosenberg's better schemes, but it didn't seem like it would make more more of an impact in the long run than his quest for Hamilton tickets.  The hashtag didn't even make any sense.

The two of them returned to the studio after that, where Rosenberg immediately launched into a string of apologies to Joe and Lorenzo.  Despite his supposed reticence, the sound engineer finally confirmed that the track had been deleted permanently in what Rosenberg insisted was an innocent mistake.  Wolfgang kicked over a microphone when he heard that and stormed out of the room, not even pausing to catch Antonio's eye as he swept past him.  While Lorenzo and Frank were trying to organize their sheet music and get tuned up to start the recording over again, Antonio slipped out into the hallway.  

Wolfgang was pacing back and forth by the elevators, both hands balled into fists, swinging his foot at a potted corn plant every time he stomped into its vicinity.  Antonio dropped onto one of the couches by the empty reception desk and waited.  They'd only known each other for a couple weeks, but he was pretty sure that if Wolfgang was still lingering around the office and not halfway to his penthouse right now, he wasn't really lashing out because of Rosenberg.

"This is fucking ridiculous," Wolfgang finally snarled.  "If Stephanie was here, this damn commercial would have been over and done with."

Antonio didn't say anything, though it took a lot of restraint not to point out that the Seraglio commercial had taken two months to complete.  The Figaro commercial had only been in the works for about three weeks, and the main thing slowing it down was Wolfgang's work ethic, not Lorenzo.  He raked his fingers through his hair, using the tie he'd been keeping around his wrist to gather it into a little ponytail at the back of his neck.

Wolfgang came to a stop and wrinkled his nose at him.  "Your hair's not long enough for that," he said.

"It obviously is," said Antonio.

"No, keep it loose!"  Wolfgang strode across the room and snatched the hair tie out himself, sliding it over his own wrist.  "You aren't getting this back until your hair is at least down to your shoulders."

Antonio grabbed his arm and pulled him down into the empty spot at his side.  He waited until Wolfgang was settled before asking, "Is there something else bothering you?  Or did you actually kick over a microphone because of Rosenberg from accounting?"

"Oh, shut up," Wolfgang grumbled.  He picked up Antonio's hand in both of his, tracing a pattern across his knuckles with his thumbs.  After a moment, he heaved a sigh and shrugged.  "This weekend," he admitted.  "Christmas would have been my mom's birthday."

Antonio held his silence, watching the course of Wolfgang's fingers across his skin.

"It's just bullshit to have to deal with that little fuck Rosenberg right now.  I should be at home with my sister and my dad, not working on this stupid commercial every day."  He huffed.  "I'm sorry, Antonio. I know you're the last person who needs to hear me complain about this.  About just losing my mom.  I mean, it's been ten years.  I still have Dad.  I should be over it."

Antonio turned his hand over and laced his fingers through Wolfgang's.  "I was eight when my parents died," he said gently. "I'm not over it."

"Really?"

He nodded, lowering his voice. "Frank and I were in the back seat when the truck hit us.  Drunk driver, some rich boy who sobered up and apologized and never faced another consequence in his life."

"Mom had a brain embolism," Wolfgang said.  "She just collapsed in the street.  I was the only one with her, and I didn't know what to do."  He pressed his forehead against Antonio's shoulder.  "It's been ten years," he said again.

Antonio didn't answer.  He followed the shape of Wolfgang's thumb with his own, matching his own breathing to the rise and fall of Wolfgang's shoulders.

A couple of minutes passed before Wolfgang said, "I really want to kiss you right now."

Antonio leaned to the side, nudging Wolfgang's forehead off of his shoulder.  "Nope, you've got a jingle to record." And when Wolfgang made a noise of protest, he added, "There'll be plenty of time for that later."

"I hate recording," Wolfgang groaned.  "The music's already in my head!  Why do I have to keep playing it over and over?"

"Because the first take wasn't good enough.  It wasn't up to the Wolfgang Mozart standard."

Wolfgang arched an eyebrow at him.  "Oh, you're trying to frame it like Rosenberg did us a favor by deleting our track?"

"Didn't he?"

"Sure," Wolfgang giggled.  "Thank fuck for your pal Rosenberg."

"Thank fuck," echoed Antonio dryly, rising and pulling Wolfgang to his feet.  At least it didn't take much to distract the guy when he was down.  He dropped Wolfgang's hand to hold open the door of the studio, watching smugly as he scampered back over to join his band as though he'd never stormed out at all.  After a quick run-through, they were able to start on another track that was already at least as good as the first.

Rosenberg may have hated the Divine Libertines' Figaro commercial, but Antonio was convinced it was a masterpiece.  The music was sublime.

 

 

Wolfgang didn't show up for lunch that day; Frank reported that he had had to take a call and would join them when he could.  Antonio tried not to let his disappointment show on his face, but judging by the glint in his brother's eye he must have failed.  To the Salieri boys' mutual surprise, Lorenzo's phone stayed in his pocket for the entire hour.  He did spend most of the conversation complaining about Rosenberg's audacity at deleting their track and Joe for not firing him for it on the spot, but it was obviously hard to stay angry when the new version they had started recording under Joe's watchful eye was already so much better than what they had lost to Rosenberg.

It was probably fortunate that Wolfgang wasn't with them, Antonio reflected as he left a tip for the server.  Lorenzo had chosen an Italian restaurant for lunch, blissfully unaware of the storm of teasing he would have unleashed if Wolfgang had joined Lorenzo Da Ponte and Francesco and Antonio Salieri for pasta.  At least nobody had ordered rigatoni.

Antonio finished answering all of the emails in his inbox long before the afternoon was over, resorting to playing minesweeper on the work computer to try to pass the rest of the day.  Rosenberg walked by his office once, pausing long enough to wink conspiratorially and point to his phone.  Curious, Antonio paused his game and navigated to twitter.  He didn't have an account, but there was a search bar across the top that let him browse through hashtags and trending words without actually following anyone.  He typed in '#toomanynotes' and hit enter.

To his surprise, the site regurgitated nearly a dozen tweets, all from that day and all panning the Divine Libertines for taking Kia's money to write a jingle.  Some had even changed their icons to pictures of Wolfgang with a red dollar sign covering both of his eyes.  He scanned a few of them, hoping that this would all die down before it caught Wolfgang's attention.  This wasn't the kind of thing he needed when he was already stressed about the commercial and his late mother's upcoming birthday.

"Antonio Sal- Saller?  Does the name on your door say 'Saller'?"

Antonio looked up guiltily, quickly closing his browser window.  Wolfgang was standing in his doorway, lifting the sticky note Frank had used to correct his last name with one finger.  "They, uh- I think they misread my signature on my employment offer back in the day."

"It's not as cute as Salieri," Wolfgang said, wrinkling his nose.

Antonio gestured to the empty seat facing his desk.  "To what do I owe the honor of your visit, maestro?"

"I'm not visiting, I'm abducting," said Wolfgang.  "Shut down your computer and let's go."

"Go where?"  Antonio shot a glance at the clock on his computer screen.  "Wolfgang, it's only 3:45."

"So what?  So stay late tomorrow and make up for it.  We have to go  _now_."

"Go where?" Antonio asked again, shutting down his computer but keeping his seat.  Joe usually left at lunch anyway, and Rosenberg was unlikely to rat him out for leaving early now that they were supposedly partners in crime.  As long as no emergencies above Lorenzo's pay grade cropped up in the last hour of the day, it should be fine to duck out with Wolfgang Mozart.  He probably wouldn't want make a habit of it, though.

"I can't tell you where," said Wolfgang.  "If I tell you, you won't come."

"Well, that doesn't exactly make me want to go with you."

"You're coming," Wolfgang insisted.  He held out one hand and waited until Antonio finally heaved a sigh and pushed himself out of his chair.  "You'll thank me someday."

Jean-Paul was outside in the Seraglio, which should have given Antonio his first clue about their destination.  He'd learned by now that Wolfgang preferred the roomy limo, whose dark windows afforded more privacy than the tinted windows of the Seraglio while still turning more heads as they passed.  The Seraglio attracted less attention, but still made him easier to spot if someone happened to be paying attention.  He'd also learned from Jean-Paul that the company had offered him free use of the car for the week the commercial dropped, and Wolfgang had gotten so attached that he'd immediately started leasing one in addition to the limo, though he didn't use it as much.  Antonio had been a little relieved to learn that the limo was a lease, not something Wolfgang Mozart had seen fit to buy for himself.

When they arrived in Midtown and Wolfgang suddenly flattened himself across the seat, using Antonio's thigh as a pillow, he knew exactly where they were headed.  He draped the spare jacket over Wolfgang's face himself, taking the opportunity to tuck a lock of hair behind his ear before he did so, and turned his head away from the window as they passed the cluster of paparazzi.  Were these the same people they had seen out front of this hotel a week and a half ago?  He was unwilling to look at them long enough to find out.

No one else stepped onto the elevator that day, which was for the best since Wolfgang seemed a little agitated.  As they ascended to Aloysia's floor, Antonio took advantage of the cramped space to lean in until their hands brushed together.  To his surprise, Wolfgang didn't pick up on the hint.  In fact, he started at Antonio's touch and stepped away, muttering a vague, "Sorry."

"You've already abducted me," Antonio pointed out as the elevator doors slid open, trying not to sound irritated.  "Mind telling me what this is all about now?"

Wolfgang was out in the hall before he finished his question, almost as though Antonio hadn't spoken at all.  "You'll thank me," he said over his shoulder, hurrying down to Aloysia's door without even waiting for Antonio to catch up.

It was pop sensation Aloysia who opened the door for them again, only slightly more presentable than she had been on the day Wolfgang had talked Antonio into piercing his ear.  Her eyes lit up at the sight of Wolfgang and she called, "He's here!" over her shoulder before her gaze fell on Antonio.  Her thin brows puckered in confusion as she looked back and forth between the two of them.  Antonio realized at once that his presence was unexpected.  Aloysia hadn't invited him.

And he realized why when she stepped out of the doorway and a familiar voice shrieked, "Oh! Wolfi!"

Constance.

Antonio took a step back, colliding with Jean-Paul and nearly losing his balance.  Wolfgang's assistant grabbed his shoulder in a move that was probably meant to be supportive, but felt more like a springing trap.  Wolfgang disappeared into the hotel room while pop sensation Aloysia stood there holding the door open and staring blankly at Antonio.  After everything that Jean-Paul had probably seen working for Mozart, would he be willing to take Antonio home right now for a twenty-dollar bill?

"Wolfi, oh god, I can't believe it's really you!" Constance's voice was saying.

Antonio gritted his teeth as the pressure of Jean-Paul's hand on his shoulder propelled him forward toward the open doorway.  He felt like his lungs were disappearing.  The cool air of the hotel hallway was suddenly stinging his eyes.

Constance!  And if Aloysia hadn't expected to see Antonio here, Constance certainly didn't.  She was supposed to be reuniting with her boyfriend right now, not making peace with Antonio.  Why was Wolfgang so determined to rub his relationship with Constance in Antonio's face?

"I've missed you!" he heard Wolfgang sigh.  "Two weeks without holding you!"

Two weeks!  Antonio had been separated from Constance for four months!  There were nights that he had half-convinced himself that he had dreamed their entire friendship.

And to say that he had missed holding Constance!  To say that when he knew that he was well within earshot of Antonio, the man he'd been sleeping during that interim!  Was that why he had brought him here?  Did he get some kind of sick pleasure out of reminding Antonio just how far out of his league his ex-girlfriend really was?

A new thought struck him: if Constance and Wolfgang still considered themselves to be dating, did all the time Antonio had spent in Wolfgang's bed - and all the time Wolfgang had spent in  _his_ bed - constitute cheating?  Had Wolfgang been cheating on Constance with her ex-boyfriend?  He'd assumed for all this time that the restraining order had ended their relationship and put Wolfgang back on the market, no matter how many times Wolfgang insisted that it was Constance's job to do that and not her mother's.  So now Constance would be able to think of Antonio as the guy who had abandoned her and then starting fucking her boyfriend.  Fantastic.

"But Constance, I didn't come al-mph!"  The wet noise of a sloppy kiss, definitely not the move of someone who thought Wolfgang was single again.  Antonio felt like he could dissolve into the well-worn carpet.  Maybe if he spun around and made a dash for the elevators, he could break Jean-Paul's grip on his shoulder and get down to the street to hail a cab.  The way he was feeling, the power of his embarrassment could probably propel him all the way back to Jersey at a run.

The kiss ended with an obscene smacking noise and a contented sigh from Constance.  Antonio swallowed - not an easy feat when his throat was this constricted.  He hadn't heard that sigh since the chaste night Constance had spent in his bed.

"I'm not here alone!" Wolfgang said quickly, probably dodging another kiss.

"What do you mean?  Are you making poor Jean-Paul wait in the hallway again?"

Aloysia shot a wry look at Antonio and stepped out into the hall.  "If you kill either of them, Stanzi, try not to get blood on the carpet."

"Why?  What did Jean-Paul do?"

So far, what Jean-Paul had done was push a mortified Antonio into the open doorway.

There was Wolfgang, that bastard, and wrapped in his arms was Constance.  Her hair was glimmering under the cheap lights of the hotel; she was radiant in another of her short dresses, this one full-skirted and floral, the blue background the same shade as her eyes.  He saw her grip on Wolfgang's shoulders tighten the moment he was pushed into her line of sight.

"Wolfi, what the fuck?" she snapped, shoving him away and breaking free of his embrace.  "What's  _he_ doing here?"

"Miss- I-" Antonio began, but the ice in her stare was too much.  He shot a desperate glance at Aloysia before ducking away from Jean-Paul's hand.  

Did he intend to run for the elevator?  Antonio didn't get a chance to find out.  The next thing he knew, Wolfgang had grabbed him by the hand and was dragging him into the hotel room.  Aloysia released the door at last, letting it close gently yet firmly, separating herself and Jean-Paul from the scene.  The three of them were left alone, staring at each other with a mix of emotions that ranged from Antonio's abject terror to the obnoxious expression of affection in Wolfgang's glitter-lined eyes.  

"I shouldn't be here," Antonio muttered, taking a step backwards.  Would Jean-Paul or Aloysia try to stop him if he left?  Aloysia was probably too pregnant to chase him down the hall, but Jean-Paul might have been given orders to keep him there.  It seemed like something Wolfgang would do.

"You hear that?  He's trying to leave!" snapped Constance.  "Well, go on!  It's what you do best!"

"Uh- Constance-" he began, but he wasn't sure what else to say.  He never should have walked out of the bar that night without speaking to her, he knew that.  He'd never deserved someone as good as her.  He was always going to let her down.

Wolfgang reached for Antonio with one hand and Constance with the other, forming a link between them.  "Tell her what you told me," Wolfgang said, swinging Antonio's arm reassuringly.  "Tell her what Cecilia did."

"She found the picture I sent him and took away my phone!  She blocked his facebook page!  Big deal, she took out a restraining order on you and look, you still found a way to see me!"

"Antonio?"

"She- she came to my office," Antonio said, staring at one of Wolfgang's boots.  "She said she'd already talked to you.  She had the photos from your bedroom and your phone.  She'd changed your lock code.  When you weren't there for lunch on Monday, I thought..." he trailed off, unsure how to justify why he had ever thought she'd come back to see him after the way he had left her the night of the concert.

But Constance had fallen silent.  He sneaked a glance at her and found that she was staring at him with her golden brows drawn together.  "Mom went to your office?"

"She threw his briefcase at him!" said Wolfgang.

"I- I thought you-" Antonio began, but he broke off again.

"She called him godless!"

Constance shushed Wolfgang, tugging his arm.  "You thought I what, Antonio?"

He could feel his entire face burning; he sounded like an idiot already.  Might as well look like one, too.  He shot a glance at Wolfgang, then met Constance's gaze again.  "I thought... I thought you'd moved on.  You and Wolfgang... he's-" Antonio gestured to Wolfgang with his free hand.

"I'm with Wolfgang because he was there for me when you weren't," Constance said sharply.  "I saw you staring at us all night after the concert, but you'd just found your brother again!  You didn't need me there while you got to know him."

"I thought he was staring at me," Wolfgang joked.

Antonio closed his eyes, understanding passing through him like a chill.  She hadn't been ignoring him for Mozart at all.  She had been giving him space to reunite with Frank.  "I'm so stupid," he whispered.  As if he hadn't already beaten himself up enough for the events of that night.

"You're not stupid!  Constance, tell him he's not stupid!"

Constance didn't answer.  After a moment, Antonio opened his eyes, bracing himself for whatever she was going to say next.  Constance was still staring at him, but the cold anger had burned away, leaving a muddled sort of pity behind.  When he met her eye, Constance said, "All this happened because you thought I wanted to leave you for Wolfgang?  On our first date?"

Antonio started to answer, but couldn't think of what to say.  Instead, he gestured weakly at Wolfgang again with his free hand.

To his surprise, Constance caught his hand in hers.  "What?  What does that mean, Antonio?"

"He's- he's Wolfgang Mozart."

Wolfgang leaned toward Constance, whispering theatrically, "I was his first celebrity crush."

She scowled at Wolfgang, but didn't release his hand.  The three of them stood there for a moment in their little triangle, Antonio unable to lift his gaze from Constance's hand where it was joined with his.  He could feel his heart dropping like a deflated balloon.  She was going to forgive him, Wolfgang was going to be happy to see her happy, and they were both going to leave him behind.  Now that Wolfgang and Constance had found a way around the restraining order, Wolfgang wasn't going to need Antonio anymore.  They would be together, Lorenzo and Stephanie would be in Philly, and once Frank gave up on him Antonio would be stuck in an office all day with no one but Rosenberg from accounting.

"Antonio?  What's wrong?"  Wolfgang was the first to break the triangle, dropping both of their hands to cup Antonio's face and peer into his eyes.

He pulled away, reluctantly releasing Constance's hand.  "I should go."

"No, wait!" protested Wolfgang, but this time he'd had enough.  

Antonio opened the door, relieved to find that Aloysia and Jean-Paul were perched on a divan at the end of the hall and not pressing their ears to the other side, and made his way to the elevator as quickly as he could without breaking into an outright run.

He pressed his burning forehead against the metal elevator door, listening as it roared to life somewhere in the bowels of the building.  This was his own fault: he should have known that Wolfgang was just using him while he was separated from Constance.  He never should have gotten into that limo.  As soon as he saw the two of them together that day at the office, he should have kept as much distance as he possibly could.  He should have transferred to Philly himself.  He shouldn't have gotten so drunk at Joe's birthday party that the bartender had taken him home to sleep on her couch.  He shouldn't have kissed Lorenzo that day at the food cart.

When the elevator arrived with a ding, he hurried inside, not daring to look up to see what Aloysia and Jean-Paul were doing at the other end of the hall.  Laughing at him, probably.  Whispering to each other and pointing.  Or maybe they had already gone back into the room to make sure Wolfgang and Constance were happily reunited.  Maybe they were confirming that the whiney Italian guy was out of their lives for good now.

Just as the elevator doors were beginning to close, they were blocked by an elegant bare arm. 

Antonio shrank back against the far wall as the doors slid back open.  Constance stepped into the elevator, crossing her arms and staring at him with that same appraising look.

"I'm sorry," he muttered.

"Good," said Constance, and she clapped one hand against the back of his neck and drew him down into a kiss.

Antonio stood frozen in shock for an instant, but quickly regained his senses and rested his fingertips on her hips, tilting his head to a better angle.  He had missed her!  He had missed this.  He had missed her soft lips, her smooth jaw, the smell of her shampoo.  Constance raked the fingers of her other hand through his hair, tugging it a little too hard, her tongue finding his a little too harshly.  The elevator doors pinged a warning that they were closing again and she broke away, eyes flashing.  Antonio stared after her, lips still parted and his hands hovering in midair.  She stepped back into the hallway, still studying him like he was a stranger at a party whose face she couldn't quite place.  Antonio took a half-step forward, but didn't dare block the elevator doors as they slid closed again.  At last, a grin broke across Constance's face, and she said, "See you at the premier Saturday."

The elevator doors clanged shut, and Antonio fell back against the wall, breathless.

What the fuck was that?


	16. Chapter 16

Antonio took the PATH home from pop sensation Aloysia's hotel room and went straight to bed.  It was 6 pm.

The apartment was pitch black when a piercing mew from Catstance woke him, reminding him that he'd fallen asleep without feeding her.  Antonio reached for his phone, unlocked it and logged into the app, tapping irritably at it until he heard the clatter of cat food being released into the waiting dish.  She leaped off the bed with a noise like a "yip" and pattered across the floor.

Antonio scowled at his phone, tossing it onto the other pillow and rolling onto his back.  Fuck Wolfgang Mozart, anyway.

He stared at the ceiling for another few minutes, listening as Catstance happily scarfed down her dinner.  At least somebody had an appetite.  His own stomach was churning like the inside of a running washing machine.  Was he going to be sick?

Antonio kicked off his blankets and launched himself out of the bed, stomping to the other side of his apartment and slapping the light switch.  He paused by the door, glaring at his shitty studio as the overhead light flickered to life.  When his lease came up next month, maybe he would move to a better place.  Maybe he'd go to a different neighborhood.  He spent a moment imagining what would happen if he just left the state, just left everyone behind and started over again with a new job and a new phone number.

Over on the pillow, the little blue light on his phone was flashing, gently alerting him to a missed notification.  He let out a long breath and stretched back out across the bed.  Frank had texted him.  Apparently he'd swung by Antonio's office at the end of the day and been surprised to find he'd already left.  Antonio sent him a quick reply that he was fine, just tired, and rolled over to stare at the ceiling again.

He'd been a little giddy on the train ride home, maybe even optimistic, but reality was settling in again and things were falling into place.  What had Wolfgang said to him the first day Antonio had gotten into his limo?  He wanted Antonio and Constance to reconcile because Constance was upset.  Then the bigger problem of the restraining order had cropped up, so he'd kept Antonio close until Constance worked out a way around it.  Once that was done, he'd dragged Antonio back over to her, gotten the reconciliation out of the way, and now he'd be able to move on.  He'd be able to move on with his relationship with Constance.

So why had she followed him into the elevator and kissed him?  What had happened between the moment Antonio left the hotel room and the moment when her arm had blocked the elevator doors from closing?  She obviously hadn't dumped Wolfgang or she wouldn't have left Antonio to go home alone, would she?  Maybe it had just been a goodbye kiss.

What if it was a goodbye?  What if it was an actual, final goodbye, a kiss of death for everything that had happened between them?  Antonio scrolled down through his text message history, past Frank, Lorenzo, and Stephanie's names until he found Constance's.  He'd read through these conversations so often he had them memorized, but he couldn't resist reading them again.  The last message was from August 25th, the day of the concert, a week after his birthday.  'See you when you get off work,' she'd said.  'It'll be an early start to our long weekend.'  It was punctuated with an emoji, the one that looked like kissing lips.  At the time, it had been a promise of things to come.  Tonight, it was an ironic goodbye.

Antonio had ruined their long weekend before it had even begun.  He'd found Frank at the concert, Constance had tried to give him space to reunite with his brother, and Antonio had been a fucking idiot about it and assumed she was more interested in Wolfgang Mozart than in him.  He remembered the way he'd sat there staring at her while his brother tried to talk to him, so convinced that she was slipping away that Frank had called him out on it multiple times, reassuring him that, as he'd put it, 'Libertine is just the band name.'

The way these past two weeks had gone, Antonio wasn't so sure of that.  He glanced over at his trash can, where he could still see handful of used condoms from Sunday.  It was one thing if he and Wolfgang had been messing around out of loneliness or boredom, or if it was leading up to some kind of relationship, but if Wolfgang really hadn't thought of himself as single, he'd been cheating on Constance with Antonio for two weeks.  There was no way around it.

He glanced over at his wardrobe where the tailored suit Wolfgang had bought him was hanging slightly apart from the rest of his clothes.  Why had Constance smiled like that when she'd said she'd see him at the premier on Saturday?  Did she think it was funny that the two people who might have been Antonio's date were back together and Antonio was going to have to walk a red carpet with his brother?  He huffed and rolled out of the bed, plugging in his phone and turning the lights back off.  If Frank hadn't been so excited about the premier, he would have given his plus-one to Lorenzo instead just to piss Constance and Wolfgang off.

As soon as he laid down again, Catstance settled onto the pillow next to him, purring loudly into his ear.  Antonio tilted his head until he could feel her fur on his cheek and closed his eyes.  At least one good thing had come out of all this romance drama, he reminded himself.  He never would have known he was a cat person if he hadn't been given Catstance.

He woke up a few hours before his alarm was supposed to go off and couldn't get back to sleep. After staring at the ceiling for a while, Antonio decided that he didn't want to risk running into Wolfgang in the office that day.  There was no way he could be professional in the face of that smug grin, knowing that Wolfgang had probably spent the night with Constance.  He got dressed quickly and took the PATH into the city, stopped by his office long enough to grab his laptop, then headed right back home.  The train was crossing the Hudson before he saw the first touch of dawn in the sky.  Antonio texted Frank to warn him that he'd be working from home that day but didn't admit why.  He didn't really want to explain what had happened with Wolfgang and Constance to his brother before he could explain it to himself.

Fridays were generally pretty slow, and the day before Christmas Eve was certainly no exception.  Antonio ended up laying on his bed in his underwear and idly watching HGTV next to a silent laptop for the entire morning.  His phone buzzed once in the afternoon: a text from an unknown number that said 'U OK? WAS HOPING 4 ITALIAN 4 LUNCH' followed by a wink emoticon.  Antonio recoiled in surprise. That had to be from Wolfgang, but what was he doing?  How dare he send an obnoxious flirty text message the day after he revealed that he'd been using Antonio to cheat on Constance?  Did he think Antonio wouldn't care?  That just because they weren't together, Antonio could be so disrespectful to Constance?

He refused to answer, turning his attention instead on the townhouse in Toronto the Property Brothers were renovating.  Another text came from the same number half an hour later: 'C U DOMANI XD'.  Antonio rolled his eyes as he added the number to his contacts.  It really would have served Wolfgang right if he had invited Lorenzo to the premier.

Mercifully, the only texts Antonio got for the rest of the day were from Frank.  He had dinner at the corner deli just as an excuse to get dressed and then turned in early, though he probably lay in bed for an hour before his racing thoughts finally settled enough to sleep.  No matter what happened at the movie premier, at least he would have Frank with him.

His brother arrived so early the next morning that Antonio still had his toothbrush in his mouth when he opened the door.  Frank was dressed in a sharp black suit Antonio hadn't seen him wear before.  His hair was combed back and his beard was neatly trimmed: the only thing that was out of place was the takeout bag hanging from one arm.  He did a little spin in the middle of the landing.  "What do you think?"

"I think it's creepy that you can be so hot when you're my brother," Antonio answered.

Frank laughed, bringing the takeout over to the counter and unpacking it.  "Weird complement, but I'll take it."

"So how'd yesterday go?" Antonio called as he returned to the bathroom.  He rinsed his toothbrush and studied his reflection, eventually deciding he should trim his beard too before he got dressed.  

"Ugh!" Frank answered.

"Why? What's ugh?"

"Just Ziggy.  He's being more of a dick than usual."

Antonio leaned away from the mirror, switching off his razor for a moment so he could hear.  Frank's coat and suit jacket were draped across his bed, and his brother had tucked a dishcloth across his collar like a bib before leaning over the counter and digging into his lo mein.  There was something weird about having Chinese for brunch, Antonio thought, but it probably wasn't easy to find a locally-owned place that was open on Christmas eve.  "Ziggy the drummer?"

"Yeah.  He's been picking fights with everybody and keeps threatening to walk out when he doesn't get his way.  It's weird.  Like, he's usually an asshole, obviously, but this is a whole new level.  Nobody knows what brought it on."

"Huh," Antonio said.  "But the commercial's going better?"

"Well, we probably would have gotten a lot more done yesterday if Wolfgang hadn't wandered off looking for you and gone missing for half the morning."

Antonio switched his razor back on, leaning back toward the mirror before Frank could see him roll his eyes.

"He asked me where you were like four times during lunch," Frank called over the noise.  "I finally had to give him your number just to shut him up."

"I noticed," Antonio answered, unplugging his razor and patting aftershave onto his cheeks.  He turned his head back and forth a few times to make sure his work was even.  "What do you think I would look like if I just shaved this off?"

"Smooth," said Frank.  "Don't do it.  When I don't have my beard I look like a Disney channel original movie.  Here, I brought you noodles too."

"Frank, I literally just brushed my teeth.  Some of us eat breakfast at a normal time, you know."

"Big talk from a guy who's still in his pajamas at noon."

"It's ten o'clock, and it's Saturday."

"It's ten o'clock on the day you're going to be walking a red carpet in Aloysia's entourage."  

"Shut up and eat your noodles," Antonio said, snatching boxer briefs and an undershirt from his drawer before heading back into the bathroom.

There was something exciting about having his brother with him as he got ready; it reminded Antonio of that evening he'd spent in the Webers' apartment while the sisters rushed back and forth between the bathroom mirror and their bedrooms in preparation for the Divine Libertines concert.  Frank's obsession with daytime television had never been more obvious than when he suddenly decided he was a lost member of the Fashion Police and started rejecting every collared shirt Antonio tried to take out of his closet.  Only the purple floral one met with Frank's approval: apparently it complemented the lavender lining of his new suit.  Antonio was paging through his collection of ties when Frank got up from his seat and batted his hands away from them, then unbuttoned his top three buttons and straightened his collar.  "This a red carpet with rock stars, not a job interview," he chided.

Antonio ducked away.  "We're going to look like twins," he complained, gesturing to Frank's equally-unbuttoned shirt.

"Your suit's gray," Frank pointed out.

"Yeah, that'll make a difference."

"So don't do your hair like mine!"

Antonio shot a dark glance at Frank's hair, which was slicked back exactly the way Antonio usually wore his now that it was getting long.  He went back into the bathroom, found a hair tie like the one Wolfgang had stolen Thursday, and fixed his hair into a ponytail at the nape of his neck.  Shorter strands slipped out on either side of his face, hanging down to his jaw and making him look like a poorly-designed anime character.  He smirked at his reflection.  Wolfgang was going to hate this.

After staring at his reflection for another second, Antonio retrieved an old eyeliner pencil from the compartment behind the mirror and lined his eyes the way he used to when he was in high school.  If he was going to have to endure a night of third-wheeling Wolfgang and Constance, he might as well look good.  He'd lost count of many times Constance had told him eyeliner suited him during their taxi ride to the Divine Libertine concert last August.  He contemplated his earring, a chunky dark stone that drew a little more attention to the piercing than he would have liked.  It was too soon to take it out or change it, so unless he was okay with the hole closing, he was stuck with it for the night.  He flicked his earlobe and frowned.  Maybe he should take it out and let it heal over.  Today especially it made him feel a little too connected to Wolfgang, like it marked him as his property.  It felt the same as the lipstick mark Constance had left on his cheek at the concert, though maybe not as overt.  When he had first shown up to lunch with the earring, it had been Lorenzo who had given him hell about it while Frank just snickered.  His brother had to know that the earring was Wolfgang's idea, though he hadn't asked.  Frank was pretty good about not asking when he saw that Antonio was uncomfortable.

Or rather, he was usually good about it.  Frank had just finished gathering up the garbage from his takeout when Antonio came out of the bathroom, and was standing over the trash can with his eyebrows raised expectantly.

"What?" Antonio asked.

Frank just gestured to the trash can, where several used condoms in varying colors were clearly visible at the top of the pile.  

Antonio could feel the flush covering his entire face as soon as he realized.  "Oh," was all he managed to say.

"Do you ever take out your trash?  There's like ten of them!"

"Just throw your shit away," Antonio grumbled.

Frank complied, but suddenly a thought seemed to strike him and he gasped, "Oh my god Antonio, were those all from one day?"

"Fuck off," answered Antonio, pretending to search among his pillows for his remote.  "We can't all be asexual."

"Holy shit!  No wonder Wolfgang is so obsessed with you!"

"He's not obsessed with me," Antonio tried to say, but he was interrupted by a knock at the door.

Frank mercifully went to answer it, leaving Antonio to finish straightening up his pillows.  He glared at the trash can, which was finally full thanks to Frank's takeout boxes.  As soon as he got back from the premier and got out of this suit, he was taking the trash out.  Then he would just have this stupid earring as evidence that he'd ever had a fling with Wolfgang Mozart at all.

"Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, at your service!"

Antonio closed his eyes, pressing his fingertips to his temple.  Great.  

"Wolfgang!" Frank was saying, his voice thick with amusement.  "Are you- is that really what you're wearing?"

God, what now?  Antonio steeled himself and turned around.

Wolfgang Mozart was on the landing, both arms outstretched for balance as he bounced back up from one of his theatrical bows.  He was dressed in black skinny jeans, a rumpled black vest over a white shirt, and, to complete the look, a jacket that looked like it was made of pure sequins.  He tugged at the lapels and grinned at Frank.  "Do you like it?"

"Let's just say you're not likely to get into a 'who wore it best' feature with anyone else at the event," said Frank with a good-natured laugh.  He stepped out of the doorway.  "Antonio?  You ready to go?"

Antonio gave Catstance a final pat before pocketing his keys, wallet and phone.  "I didn't realize we weren't taking a cab," he muttered, brushing past them both and busying himself with the freight elevator.

"What kind of cheap date do you think I am?" Wolfgang joked as he hurried after him.

Antonio didn't answer.  He pulled the doors open and waited until Wolfgang and Frank were both in the elevator, keeping his gaze on the floor as they passed him.  

The elevator roared to life, creaking and groaning its way downward.  Wolfgang edged closer to Antonio, hesitating when Antonio wouldn't meet his eye.  "I texted you," he said meekly, the noise of the elevator nearly eclipsing his voice.  "Frank gave me your number."

Antonio shot a glance in his brother's direction and shrugged.  If he spoke to Wolfgang right now, he was afraid he would say everything he'd been thinking since Thursday afternoon.

Even in the dim elevator, he saw the flash of sequins as Wolfgang started to reach for his hand.  Antonio quickly crossed his arms and leaned back against the elevator wall, putting as much space as he could between them.  Wolfgang froze, his hand still hovering in midair.  "Antonio-?"

"Hey, have you heard from Ziggy since yesterday?" Frank blurted.

Wolfgang took a step back, turning toward Frank without taking his eyes off Antonio.  "Ziggy?  Is he okay?  He- he was weird yesterday."

"Maybe it's a family thing," suggested Frank.  "Does he live with anyone?"

"I don't think so," Wolfgang said quietly.  He let out a long sigh and jammed his hands into his pockets.  "Did you see all that stuff on twitter?"

"Oh," said Frank.  "Yeah.  That 'too many notes' stuff?"

Wolfgang nodded, taking another step backward.  "I don't get it.  It's everywhere."

"It'll blow over."

Antonio lifted his gaze at last, furrowing his brow as he studied Wolfgang and Frank.  He hadn't thought about Rosenberg's hashtag since Thursday afternoon.  In just two days, how had it already escalated to the point where the whole band had seen it?  More importantly, were there really that many fans who were upset that the Divine Libertines were doing another commercial?  If anyone was going to be a pretentious fan it would be Antonio, who had always prided himself on liking the band before they were famous.  He certainly didn't think a couple car commercials qualified as selling out.  Then again, he was a grown man who'd given up on any hope of pursuing his own music career and settled for a nine-to-five job to pay the bills.  Most of the Divine Libertines fans were teenagers.  Ten years ago, the world had looked a lot different to Antonio, too.

When they reached the ground floor, Wolfgang shot another baleful glance at Antonio and slunk out of the elevator.  Despite his shimmering jacket, he looked small as he crossed the lobby and slipped out of the building.  Frank wasn't as resigned: he slung an arm around Antonio's shoulders and walked him to the door.  His grip felt more like a reprimand than an embrace.  "Whatever's going on, this might not be the time," he murmured.  "You've been so happy these past few weeks.  Don't take that for granted."

Antonio didn't answer.  If this wasn't the time for him to be mad that Wolfgang had used him to cheat on Constance, it definitely wasn't the right time for him to explain it all to Frank.

"Antonio?"

"It's fine," he said quickly.  "Don't worry about it.  Let's go make fools out of ourselves."

Wolfgang's familiar limo was idling at the curb, though tonight the driver was a squat woman in a tux instead of Jean-Paul.  Frank ducked in first, scooting across the back seat to make room for Antonio, followed by Wolfgang who had been holding the door.  The long L-shaped seat was already packed.  Closest to them sat Aloysia herself, pinned into a gown that risked garnering more attention than Wolfgang's glitter coat.  The skirt was made of forest-green satin and was a long, fairly-modest cut, but that was the only fabric in the entire dress.  Instead of a bodice, a collar of long black feathers regally framed the back of Aloysia's head, then followed the line of her body all the way down to the front of the skirt, creating an effect like an outrageous plunging neckline.  Her breasts were hidden by decorative black swatches that were essentially oversized pasties; Antonio couldn't tell without staring what was holding them in place.  Despite the feathers and her nearly-bare torso, the dress had obviously been created for the express purpose of calling attention to her pregnant belly.  She caught Antonio's eye and winked.  "I might have gone for decadent after all," she said, patting gently at her pompadour-inspired updo.

It was Frank who replied, "Astounding!"

"The guitarist!" Aloysia said, turning her attention to him.  "Ever since Wolfgang told me about you I've been dying to meet you.  Come here," she instructed, patting the empty space at her side.

Frank shot a quick grin at Antonio before obeying, mercifully freeing up a good deal of space on the back seat.

He slid into the spot between Aloysia and Sophie, the smallest Weber sister, who was in a sweet pink dress.  She was deep in conversation with Kaavya Kavalieri, who seemed to be wearing the same shimmery red and gold sari she had worn when she opened for the Divine Libertines at Madison Square Garden last August.  Her face was studded with rhinestones again, accentuating her strong brows and her handsome cheekbones.  At the other end of the curved seat, facing Antonio and Wolfgang, were a petite brunette in a frilly blue dress and Constance. 

Antonio felt all the air leave his lungs when he caught sight of her.  Amid all the glamorous, glimmering outfits in that limo, Constance was wearing a little black dress.  It was short, of course, like all her dresses, but instead of the full skirt Antonio was so used to seeing on her, this dress was almost sinfully form-fitting, accentuating the shape of her hips and calling attention to her bare legs.  A long piece of sheer fabric hung from the waist like a train, giving the garment an air of grandeur appropriate for a red-carpet event.  It was long-sleeved, but with a narrow neckline that plunged to the bottom of her breasts, revealing just enough perfect cleavage to remind Antonio of that picture she had sent him not long before the concert.  Her golden hair hung loose around her shoulders.  In choosing the simplest dress of the lot, Constance had managed to make herself stand out and, in Antonio's eyes, outshine everyone in the limo.

She had been giggling about something with the little brunette when the Salieri boys climbed in.  She looked up for a moment, met Antonio's gaze, and flashed him her easy smile before going back to her conversation.  He felt a little bit of his tension ease: at least Constance was good at pretending there was nothing uncomfortable going on between them.  As long as she kept up her smile for the cameras, Antonio could try to do the same.  Maybe the three of them would get through this night after all.

For the first time in all the times Antonio had been in this limo, the minibar was actually stocked with drinks.  Frank helped himself to a glass of white wine as soon as he noticed, while Aloysia went around the limo introducing the Salieri boys to everyone else.  The little brunette in the butterfly-print dress was Nannerl, Wolfgang's sister; when Aloysia introduced her, she looked Antonio up and down and winked.  He nodded politely and quickly averted his eyes.  Yeah, she was definitely related to Wolfgang.

The limo was filled with the rumble of several low conversations.  Antonio scanned the group: everyone was talking to the person next to them except for him.  At his side, Wolfgang was staring at the floor, lacing and unlacing his fingers in his lap like an anxious kid waiting outside the principal's office.  If he had seen the tweets from fans complaining about his work on the commercials, did that mean he had also seen the people who had changed their icons to those pictures of him with red dollar signs over his eyes?  Was he taking their outrage seriously?  Antonio remembered the way Rosenberg had been sitting behind his desk and smirking at the open door as though he was waiting for someone to confront him.  The senior accountant didn't know much about getting Hamilton tickets, but apparently he did know his way around social media.  That was a surprise.  If Antonio had had any idea that the hashtag would catch on, he would have talked him out of creating it.

Wouldn't he?  Or would he have let the commercial spiral out of control in the name of keeping Lorenzo in the city?  Antonio heaved a sigh.  He wasn't sure.  When this had all started, his only thought had been to keep his best friend from leaving him.  He hadn't expected the Divine Libertines to get hurt.

Antonio stole a glance at Constance, who was still catching up with Wolfgang's sister Nannerl.  The little brunette whispered something into her ear, which made Constance gasp and swat at her in mock indignation.  Yep, definitely a Mozart.  Antonio took advantage of the moment to edge his hand closer to Wolfgang's on the seat between them.  Wolfgang jolted upright when Antonio's pinkie brushed his, his enormous brown eyes lighting up again and his usual grin spreading across his face.  He slid his hand under Antonio's and intertwined their fingers.  Antonio scooted nearer to him on the seat, crossing his legs so that they blocked Constance's view.  Aloysia was the closest to them: what if she saw what they were doing?  She was turned to face Frank, presenting Wolfgang and Antonio with a view of her bare back and a half-faded tattoo of a disco ball on her shoulder blade.  He glanced down at their joined hands and felt a flush rising in his cheeks.  He was the one who had initiated this.  He was guilty now, just as guilty as Wolfgang had ever been.  And Constance was right there, hardly ten feet away!

But Wolfgang was smiling again, beaming even, and Antonio couldn't bring himself to do the right thing and pull away.  He shot another rueful glance at their hands before turning his attention to the traffic outside the window.  After tonight, he told himself, this was going to be over.  If he could just stay away from Wolfgang Mozart, maybe he would start doing right by Constance.  Antonio was going to take out the trash, take out his earring, and remove himself from this ridiculous triangle before it escalated any further.  Before someone got hurt.

Wolfgang didn't release his hand until a teenage attendant in an obviously-rented tux opened the door, revealing a scene straight out of a magazine.  The red carpet was stretched out before them, covering around twenty feet between the curb and the entrance to the theater.  A barrier was set up on one side to hold back a swarm of photographers and journalists; on the other was a backdrop plastered with the name of the film, "The Managers".  Clunky television cameras were everywhere, with cables crisscrossing the ground and flashbulbs lighting up the dusky afternoon.  He noticed that enormous space heaters had been set up along the bottom of the barrier, ostensibly working to turn the winter air balmy so that the celebrities could wear as little as they liked.

There were already a few clusters of people in plain suits walking the carpet, a brightly-dressed celebrity at the nucleus of each.  Antonio followed Wolfgang out of the limo, nervously tugging at his collar and unbuttoning and rebuttoning his jacket.  When Frank had first insisted he wear the floral shirt with his gray suit, he'd thought it would look ridiculous.  That was before he'd seen Wolfgang wearing a jacket made of sequins or Aloysia with a bodice constructed out of feathers.  Antonio's outfit was positively restrained in comparison.  He lingered at the back of the group while the rest of them clambered out of the limo, straightening their clothes and preening before they went in front of the cameras.  Constance was the last to emerge; to Antonio's chagrin, Wolfgang rushed over to offer her his hands and she stepped down onto the sidewalk.

Antonio took a step back, looking around for Frank, and was mortified to discover that his brother was already out on the carpet with Aloysia and the rest of the group.  The photographers were practically clobbering each other to get a shot of Aloysia in her outrageous dress.  She cradled her swollen stomach in her hands and smiled tenderly for the cameras in a move so well-calculated that Antonio had to stare.  Joey Lange was going to look like an idiot and an asshole when these pictures showed up on the front page of every magazine and website.  For a moment, he understood Frank's obsession with pop sensation Aloysia: she was kind of a genius.  

A few of the photographers had turned their attention on Kavalieri, who was posing with an arm around Sophie's waist and her serious stare, but Frank and Nannerl were already halfway to the theater.  It looked like they had been largely undisturbed by the press.  Antonio rolled his eyes.  Half the songs that had made Wolfgang popular as a tween heartthrob had been written by his sister Nannerl, and Frank was one of the best guitarists he'd ever heard play. Still, if the two of them could make it across the red carpet without causing too much of a scene, surely a marketing manager from Jersey would have even better luck.

He gave his jacket a final tug as he hesitated at the place where the carpet began.  He couldn't run the length of it, obviously, but if he simply nodded politely to the photographers once or twice as he passed he might be able to get by without ending up on any worst-dressed lists.  He toed the edge of the carpet, then steeled himself to take the first step.

Suddenly a glittery sleeve was wrapped around his elbow and Wolfgang Mozart was tugging him back onto the sidewalk.  Antonio looked up to find that the star's other arm was slung around Constance's waist.  He flashed his impish smile at Antonio.  "Wait for us," Wolfgang urged.  "If we're going to piss off Cecilia, we've got to do it right."

"She reads Entertainment Weekly," Constance said.  "Make sure E News gets a photo of us!"

"You- you aren't afraid of what she'll do?" Antonio asked over Wolfgang's head.

Constance just grinned at him.  "You didn't hear?  Allie's closing on a three-bedroom condo in SoHo.  She's going to sign all of Joey's child support payments over to mom, and in return I'm moving in with her."

Wolfgang pressed a noisy kiss to Constance's cheek.  "We'll be free!" he crowed.

"That's great," Antonio said, and he halfway meant it.  Constance and all of her sisters deserved to live outside of the influence of their mother's tyrannical disdain of men, of course, and he was happy to hear that she had found a way to do so.  He was a little less pleased to consider that this meant that she and Wolfgang would be completely free to resume their relationship, far from Cecilia Weber's lawyers and restraining orders.  Far from Antonio, as well.

"I might buy a place too," said Wolfgang.  "They won't let me change the furniture in the penthouse."

"Ask Allie for her realtor's number!  She's been great."

From the red carpet, a photographer suddenly shouted Wolfgang's name.  Another took up the cry, and within a moment they sounded uncannily like the crowd of fans at Madison Square Garden.  Aloysia had finally rejoined her entourage on the far side of the carpet, leaving it empty but for Wolfgang Mozart who was standing on the sidewalk chatting with his friends.  "Let's go!" Wolfgang said brightly.  "Operation Piss-Off-Cecilia!"

The three of them moved out onto the carpet, immediately setting off the blinding flashes of a hundred cameras.  Antonio realized he was squinting and forced himself to unfurrow his brow lest he look angry in the eventual pictures.  If Wolfgang wasn't going to let go of his arm, then his face was definitely going to appear in tabloids the next day right next to the rock star's.  He resisted the urge to tug self-consciously at his jacket, straightening his shoulders and mustering an expression that was halfway between pleasant and neutral.  Thank goodness he had thought to trim his beard that morning.

"Wolfgang!" a journalist was shouting   She extended a microphone plastered with the bold E! logo.  "Wolfgang!  Tell us who you're wearing!"

"A Gigi Lepage original," he answered cheerfully.

"And who are you with?"

Wolfgang leaned closer to the microphone until his lips were almost touching it, dragging Constance and Antonio forward as he did.  "My girlfriend, Constance Weber," he said, tilting his head toward her, "and my boyfriend, Antonio Salieri."

Boyfriend?

In the moment of total silence that followed, Antonio felt his body temperature plunge and then spike again as the shock coursed through him.  He dropped Wolfgang's arm the instant he regained control of his limbs, shooting a panicked stare at Constance who had to have heard.  Everyone had heard.  Suddenly the press were shouting Antonio's name as well as Constance's and Wolfgang's, brandishing microphones and shrieking follow-up questions in a wave of pandemonium.

His boyfriend?   _Boyfriend_?  

If Constance's expression had changed at all, it was the smug edge to her sweet smile and she silently surveyed the crowd, no doubt thinking about what her mother would say when Entertainment Weekly reported that she had been seen with both of the men Cecilia had chased away at once.  And Wolfgang Mozart had said that he was in a relationship with both of them!  Between this and his ridiculous glitter coat, he may have found a way to upstage Aloysia's pregnancy dress after all.

A nearby journalist was suddenly thrusting her microphone at Antonio, belting out a string of questions about the nature of his relationship to Wolfgang and to Constance.  He just stared, acutely aware of a television camera that had swung his way.  The flashbulbs were like fireworks, exploding everywhere he looked until he felt like he was going to go blind.  Antonio tried to steady himself with a deep breath, but it was as if the space heaters were sucking all the fresh air out of his lungs.  Was he going to have a panic attack right here on the red carpet?

A hand grabbed his - he actually recognized Wolfgang by touch this time - and suddenly Constance was at his other side, saying something polite and demure to the journalist as the two of them guided Antonio away into the quiet sanctuary of the theater lobby.  The rest of the group was waiting for them; Frank pulled him into a tight hug and told him he'd looked great out there.  Antonio couldn't figure out how to answer.  He felt like a dazed sailor who'd fallen overboard in a storm and had finally been dragged onto a life raft.  His ears were ringing.

Wolfgang Mozart had just called him his boyfriend on national television.  Wolfgang Mozart had called him his boyfriend, and Constance hadn't minded.  Constance knew that Wolfgang and Antonio had been together?  If she hadn't known before, she did now.  But why wasn't she angry?  Why wasn't she ashamed?

Actually, why wasn't Antonio angry?  Who was Wolfgang to decide that they were in a relationship without telling Antonio?  Who was he to announce it to a TV crew like that?  How did he know Antonio was okay with it?  How did he know Antonio was out?

When a teenaged usher led the group to a row of eight empty seats, Antonio ended up on the aisle next to Wolfgang.  Constance was sitting on his other side, and beyond her was her sister Sophie.  Antonio had to lean forward to find Frank, who was all the way at the other end of the group between Aloysia and Nannerl.  When Frank caught his eye and waved Antonio scowled back, crossing his arms and slumping down in his seat.  He really should have brought Lorenzo instead.  At least it would have prevented Wolfgang from pretending to be his boyfriend in order to piss off Constance's mom.

Joey Lange and the rest of the crew filed into the theater last, earning a round of polite applause from the friends and crew members assembled there.  Antonio noticed that no one in his row bothered to clap and felt a bit of the cloud that was hanging over him lift.  At least they were united in judgement of the guy who had dumped pop sensation Aloysia.

The director made a speech, most of the room applauded again, and the movie finally began, plunging the room into darkness.  The opening credits played over shots of screaming crowds as viewed from various stages around the world, which would have been innocent enough if the crowds hadn't largely been composed of people wearing Divine Libertines shirts.  Wolfgang shifted unhappily at Antonio's side, but before he could reach for his hand Antonio saw Constance slip her arm through his and rest her head on his shoulder.  Right.

The film was pretty mediocre, though Joey Lange's performance as Wilhelm Geldhart, lead singer of the Candid Charmers, was spot-on.  Antonio wouldn't have admitted it, but he even felt like Joey brought a certain depth to the character that he'd never seen from the real Wolfgang.  At least Wolfgang's lawyers had barred the production team from using actual Divine Libertines songs during the film, which led to long, awkward concert scenes backed by stock music that didn't match the movements of the fake musicians or the crowds.

Speaking of the real Wolfgang, the movie had only been on for about half an hour when he and Constance started kissing.  Antonio leaned slightly toward the aisle, trying to find a way to shoot a distressed stare in Frank's direction without looking like he was ogling the couple.  What must the people around them think?

His shifting around in the seat obviously caught Wolfgang's attention; without breaking away from Constance, he reached back and put a hand on Antonio's thigh.

Someone in the row behind them let out a polite cough.  Antonio slunk lower into his seat, which unfortunately resulted in Wolfgang's hand sliding higher up his thigh.  He sat perfectly still after that, trying not to listen to the wet sounds of Constance and Wolfgang's makeout session.

He frowned at the hand on his leg.  A thought struck him, oddly-timed given the spectacle unfolding in the next seat over, but for once he couldn't bat it away.  Had Wolfgang been serious when he called Antonio his boyfriend?  It had seemed like it was just for show, just to upset Cecilia, but there were no cameras on them right now.  There was no real reason for Wolfgang to be touching him if he didn't just... want to.  In fact, there had been no cameras and no Cecilia when Wolfgang had tried to grab Antonio's hand in the freight elevator and sulked for ten minutes after Antonio pulled away.  No one but Antonio had witnessed his enormous smile when he had touched his hand in the back seat of the limo, either.  The text messages he had sent yesterday afternoon complaining that he had wanted Italian for lunch, Frank's story that Wolfgang wandered out of the rehearsal in search of Antonio - none of that made sense if it was supposed to be performative.  Antonio felt a flush spreading across his cheeks as he stared at the hand perched not-quite-innocently on his thigh.  Did Wolfgang actually like him despite everything?  Despite having Constance back?  Did Wolfgang Mozart actually consider Antonio his boyfriend?

At his side, Wolfgang and Constance broke apart, ostensibly to catch their breath, but Wolfgang still didn't move his hand away.  As she settled back into her own seat, Constance caught Antonio staring and smirked, the same look she had given him after their kiss in the elevator.  Antonio quickly dropped his gaze.  Did she know where Wolfgang's hand was right now?  Did she know that he might even believe what he'd said to the press earlier? 

But did the lead singer of the Divine Libertines actually believe that he was dating both Antonio and Antonio's ex-girlfriend at the same time?

Antonio tried to turn his attention back to the movie, a cliché Spinal Tap ripoff filmed in the style of a documentary.  Joey Lange's Wilhelm character was doing a fake interview about meeting fans at concerts and taking them back to his place for a wild party with the rest of the band.  Antonio grimaced.  No wonder Wolfgang was more interested in Constance than the film.  The wildest thing he'd ever seen Wolfgang do was drink a bottle of rosé and shop for ugly shirts online.  Unfortunately, the fictional Wilhelm Geldhart aligned with enough rock star stereotypes that people who saw this movie might not know how far off-base it was.  Antonio closed his eyes, remembering the look on Wolfgang's face when he'd asked Frank if he'd seen all the negative attention the band was getting on twitter.  The release of The Managers couldn't have possibly come at a worse time.  Add in the fact that tomorrow was Christmas, the anniversary of the death of Wolfgang's mother, and suddenly it seemed like the world was heaping a little too much onto Wolfgang's shoulders.

With a sideways glance in Constance's direction, Antonio gently covered Wolfgang's hand with his own.  But for once, Wolfgang didn't respond by interlacing their fingers or even smiling.  He was frozen in his seat with his wide eyes trained on the screen, his face flooded with a look of utter betrayal.  Antonio followed his gaze: a stoic, gray-haired man with a chiseled jaw and a dark suit had just walked into the Candid Charmers' dressing room and was glowering at Wilhelm Geldhart.  In a cutaway interview sequence, Joey Lange's character took a long swig of whiskey straight from the bottle before launching into a diatribe about his overbearing father.

There was a little bit of commotion from the other side of their row when pop sensation Aloysia got to her feet, swaying a little under the weight of her pregnant belly, and strode out of the theater with Nannerl Mozart in her wake.  Frank shot a glance in Antonio's direction, shrugged, and hurried after them.

"We can go, Wolfi," he heard Constance whisper, but Wolfgang didn't even turn his head.

Antonio peeled his hand off his leg, curling Wolgang's fingers around his.  "She's right," he said.  "Aloysia just left.  You don't have to stay."

"This is stupid.  Come on," said Constance, getting to her feet and seizing Wolfgang's other hand.  Together, she and Antonio ushered a shaken Wolfgang Mozart out to the brightly-lit lobby.  

This theater was tall and narrow, probably built in the 20s and renovated in the 80s based on the clash between the architecture and the decor.  The concession stand and ticket booth were empty, and beyond the glass doors a crew was breaking down the red carpet.  Antonio noticed with chagrin that a few photographers were still milling around.  If a story broke that Wolfgang Mozart had left the premier of The Managers in a rage over the way the lead character was depicted, more people would end up buy tickets opening weekend just to see what the source of the controversy was.  It definitely wouldn't be good for his image or for the band.

Wolfgang was standing silently between Antonio and Constance, staring into the distance and scowling as though he were still seeing the movie play out.  Aloysia had lowered herself onto a bench; pacing furiously before her was Nannerl Mozart, her hands balled into fists.

"Wolfgang?" Frank called, leaving his spot at Aloysia's side.  "Hey, are you okay, man?"

Wolfgang let out a long exhale as a hiss between his teeth.  "That fuck!" he snarled.

"Let's go.  Wolfgang, let's go!" Nannerl fumed.

"But there are photographers out there," warned Antonio.  "People might get the wrong idea about why he left."

Nannerl stopped pacing and turned a thoughtful stare on him.  

"He's right," said Wolfgang quietly.  "We have to go back in."

"Or," Aloysia said, pushing herself off the bench, "the rest of us can go in.  We'll finish up the movie with Sophie and Kaavya and walk out together like nothing happened.  The three of you can sneak out and take a cab home.  We'll handle the press."

Antonio could feel Wolfgang relax at the suggestion.

"I can do that," Nannerl said resolutely.  "If anyone asks, we'll tell them you had to take an important call or something."

Frank put a hand on Antonio's shoulder.  "That okay with you?  If you want to see the rest of the movie, the two of us can get a cab when it's over," he offered, his gaze flicking toward Constance for the briefest of moments.

"Uh- if you guys don't mind-" Antonio started to say.

But Wolfgang didn't even let him finish. "Antonio stays with us," he said firmly.

He could feel his face turning hot again.  It was looking more and more like Wolfgang Mozart actually thought Antonio was his boyfriend.  Was something like that even possible?  He eyed Constance, but to his surprise she was nodding in agreement.  He shrugged at Frank.  "Text me if the movie gets any better."

Wolfgang snorted.

"Okay.  And you text me if you need a ride or anything," said Frank, glancing in Constance's direction again.  Antonio suddenly realized that the last Frank had heard, this premier was all a ploy to let Wolfgang and Constance be seen in public together despite Cecilia's restraining order.  Antonio hadn't told him about Wolfgang's attempt to get Constance to forgive Antonio for leaving her after the concert.  He hadn't told him about the goodbye kiss in the elevator.  He didn't even know what Wolfgang had said to E! News an hour ago.

It was too late now.  His brother gave his shoulder another squeeze, then filed back into the theater after Nannerl Mozart and pop sensation Aloysia.  Antonio took a deep breath and followed his ex-girlfriend and his former celebrity crush as they sneaked through a side door into the alley.  He could get through this, he told himself.  He would stick around long enough to make sure Wolfgang was okay, then leave the two of them to finish what they'd started in the movie theater.  He glanced down at Wolfgang and Constance's joined hands.  Somebody was going to have to make a decision, and somebody was going to get hurt.  Antonio jammed his own hands into the pockets of his trousers.  

He had to admit he didn't like his chances.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided not to up the rating because I don't think I have the guts to actually be "explicit" especially in this particular fandom, but this is a sex chapter my friends, buckle up.

Antonio hung back on the curb with Wolfgang while Constance hailed them a cab.  They'd taken the alley to the next block over where they were less likely to run into paparazzi, though there was no hiding Wolfgang's ridiculous glitter coat.  The street was congested with traffic and pedestrians, including a handful of off-brand mascots that had drifted over from Times Square.  Luckily, no one seemed to notice the lead singer of the Divine Libertines taking cover behind Antonio.  Also luckily, Constance's bare legs did attract the attention of a cab driver the moment she put up her arm.  She shot a smile at Antonio as she opened the door.  "You can pay, Wall Street.  I don't have any pockets."

He let Wolfgang slide into the seat after her, separating the two of them, but suddenly his heart was racing.  She had called him Wall Street!  It had been so long since he had heard any of Constance's silly nicknames.  God, he had missed her.  He was almost surprised she remembered them after all this time, that she remembered any of their inside jokes.  Wall Street, because he'd been wearing a suit jacket and a tie the first time he'd come to the karaoke bar.  Because he had paid for a cab to take her and her sisters to the Divine Libertines concert instead of taking the subway.  Because he carried a briefcase and had a nine-to-five job at a marketing firm.  Once the truth came out about Wolfgang's misplaced affection for him, the names Constance would be calling Antonio probably wouldn't be terms of endearment.

The back seat of the cab was a little tight with all three of them inside.  Their driver was a burly man whose accent fell somewhere between Armenia and Brooklyn, and who couldn't seem to decide whether he should use the rearview mirror to stare at Constance's cleavage or Wolfgang's jacket.  On Constance's instruction he painstakingly typed the name of Wolfgang's hotel into his GPS and pulled out into the crowded street.

Antonio's hip and the entire outside of his thigh were pressed against Wolfgang's in the cramped space.  As soon as they were settled Wolfgang had looped one arm through Antonio's and the other through Constance's, and now he had his forehead pressed against Antonio's shoulder.  Antonio resisted the impulse to lay his cheek against the top of Wolfgang's head, glancing quickly at Constance.  She was running her fingers along Wolfgang's other hand, though there was a grim set to her mouth.  She met Antonio's gaze and smiled ruefully, nodding toward Wolfgang and rolling her eyes.  Antonio smiled back before turning toward the window.  His heartbeat was pounding in his ears.  For a brief moment, he had been able to imagine what it would be like if he and Constance were a couple, were parents, and their troublesome kid had finally fallen asleep in Antonio's arms.  He tilted his head until Wolfgang's hair was brushing his jaw, sighing slowly so as not to disturb him.  A scene like that might be waiting in Wolfgang and Constance's future, he thought.  The two of them were both so cheerful and kind, they would probably be amazing parents one day.  Would it be worse for him if they completely shut him out of their lives, or if he became weird Uncle Antonio who mopes around the apartment every Thanksgiving staring longingly at Mom and Dad?

None of them said anything until they arrived at the hotel, where it turned out that Wolfgang hadn't brought his wallet either and Antonio really did need to pay for the cab.  Wolfgang kissed his cheek while he was settling up and followed Constance out through the other door.  Antonio glanced quickly at the driver, but he was messing with his GPS and didn't seem to notice.  The bill was a little higher than reasonable considering how short the drive had been, but Antonio didn't feel like he had the right to complain when he was wearing a free suit.  He chose the 20% tip option, retracted his card, and joined the couple who were lingering on the sidewalk waiting for him.  Antonio noticed right away that Wolfgang's arm was around Constance's waist again; when he reached for Antonio with his free hand, Antonio stepped back.  

Wolfgang furrowed his brow.  "Aren't you coming upstairs?"

"Wolfgang," Antonio sighed.  "Can we talk?"

"Upstairs," said Constance sternly.

Antonio followed her gaze: a family of tourists who had been waiting at a nearby bus stop were staring at them.  The teenage daughter was holding up a phone, her camera pointed at the lead singer of the Divine Libertines.  Was she taking pictures or a video?  Either way, Antonio certainly didn't want it plastered all over social media that he'd broken up with his fake boyfriend the same night as the premier of Joey Lange's new movie that assassinated his character.  He scowled in the tourists' direction.  "Alright.  I guess I'm going up," he muttered.

The three of them trooped across the hotel lobby, Wolfgang waving cheerfully at the desk attendant as they passed.  They answered with a chirpy, "Merry Christmas, Mr. Mozart!"

Antonio's heart had never been heavier.  He watched the floor counter by the private elevator tick downward like a doomsday clock.  If only things would have carried on like this indefinitely!  But someday it wouldn't be enough for Wolfgang to furtively grab his hand behind Constance's back.  Someday he would look around and realize that stolen kisses and lingering hugs weren't the same thing as being in a real relationship.  He had to put a stop to all this now before he got in too deep.

He sneaked a glance at Constance, and discovered to his surprise that she was staring at him - or rather, staring at his throat with her lower lip caught between her teeth.  He coughed and she met his eye.  "It always comes back to elevators with us, doesn't it?" she asked with a sly grin.

"Elevators?"

The doors pinged open and Wolfgang bounced inside, followed by Constance.  Antonio hesitated at the threshold, "I don't think I should-"

"Oh, for fuck's sake!" Constance cried.  She grabbed a fistful of Antonio's shirt and pulled him onto the elevator, which sent Wolfgang into a fit of giggles.  

The door clanked shut behind him, and Antonio cleared his throat.  "Uh, Constance-"

"I told you, didn't I?" Constance said to Wolfgang.  She still hadn't released the front of his shirt.  "Rusty the Tin Man."

Wolfgang smirked.  "He loosens up once his clothes are off."

"Good," said Constance, and she shoved Antonio against the elevator doors and kissed him.

This time, Antonio was too shocked to kiss her back.  He stood with his hands splayed at his sides, his shoulders planted against the doors, not even sure he knew how to breathe anymore.  Constance was kissing him again?  Constance was kissing him?  In front of Wolfgang?

Constance and Wolfgang had been talking about him?  She already knew he and Wolfgang had been sleeping together?  And she was kissing him anyway?

Wolfgang took advantage of the moment to step across the elevator and slide the elastic out of Antonio's ponytail, snapping it over his own wrist.  He tousled Antonio's hair as it swung loose around his face.

Constance broke away long enough to shove Wolfgang back with her free hand.  "Don't be greedy!  You've had him for long enough."

"What-?" Antonio blurted as soon as he could breathe again.  He wasn't sure which question to ask first.  "What?"

"Give him a minute, Constance.  If his head explodes, nobody gets him," teased Wolfgang.

The elevator doors against which he'd been leaning opened and Antonio staggered backwards, his arms windmilling as he lost his balance and fell on his ass in front of both of them.  Wolfgang found this hilarious, of course, doubling over in hysterics until he ended up plopping down at Antonio's side, clutching his stomach and trying to catch his breath.  Constance was smiling too; she stepped over Antonio's legs and went over to the kitchen, where she grabbed a paper towel and started wiping away her smudged lipstick.

"You- aren't you-?" Antonio started to say, gaping at Constance, then at Wolfgang.  "But I thought-"

"Come on!  How can you possibly be so surprised right now?" Wolfgang laughed, brushing a lock of hair away from Antonio's cheek.

Constance returned from the kitchen.  "Shut up for a second," she said to Wolfgang as she knelt at Antonio's other side.  "Let him ask his question."

The couple stared at him expectantly, Wolfgang crossing his legs and resting his chin in his hands.  Antonio looked back and forth between the two of them.  His heart was beating so loudly that he was surprised they couldn't hear it.  He cleared his throat, then cleared it again.  "Is- is this a joke?" he finally asked.

"Antonio!" Wolfgang groaned dramatically, throwing himself backward onto the floor.

At his other side, Constance sighed and dropped her face into her hands.

"Sorry- look, this isn't... aren't you dating each other?" he stammered.

"Oh, my fault!" Wolfgang said, pushing himself up onto his hands.  "I didn't formally ask you, did I?"

"Ask me?"

"Alright, here." Wolfgang clambered up onto his knees and clapped his hands on either side of Antonio's face.  "Antonio Salieri, will you please be my handsome Italian boyfriend?"

He glanced at Constance. "Uh-"

"It's going to be a little awkward if he says no," Constance muttered.

Wolfgang scoffed, "Yeah, right.  Okay, then put it this way.  Antonio," he said, "do you want to date me?  Don't look at Constance!"

"I- uh, well... yeah," Antonio admitted.  "But if you two-"

"Follow-up question from Constance!" interrupted Wolfgang.  He kissed Antonio's forehead and then released his face.

Constance leaned in, narrowing her eyes as she studied him.  "Last summer," she began, "you said that you thought you might be falling in love with me."

Antonio cleared his throat again.  He could feel a flush spreading across his cheeks and ears.  "Constance, I-"

"Shh!" she hissed.

At his other side, Wolfgang stifled a giggle.

Constance scowled at him over her shoulder.  She rolled her eyes, and then cupped Antonio's face in her hands just as Wolfgang had done.  "Antonio Salieri," she said, "prince of Wall Street, rustiest tin man in the New York metropolitan area, will you please be my handsome Italian boyfriend too?"

"Will I- will... for both of you?" Antonio asked cautiously.  "Can you do that?"

"Up to you," said Wolfgang.

Antonio looked back and forth between them again.  Wolfgang's infectious smile, Constance's smoldering stare, the smell of Wolfgang's cologne, of Constance's flowery shampoo, his jaw and exposed throat, the appealing curves of her breasts... and both of them staring at him expectantly, waiting for him to admit that he wanted them both, that he had never wanted to choose one over the other.  Sunny Constance, glittery Wolfgang, both of them dedicated to him, to a fuckup foster kid from New Jersey.  Unable to find his voice suddenly, he could only nod.

"Finally!" Wolfgang crowed.  He stuck out a hand and stared expectantly at Constance until she sighed, released Antonio's face, and high-fived him.

Antonio ran his hands through his hair, and then did it again.  Constance and Wolfgang both wanted to date him?  Both of them?  At once?  Was that even possible?

"Okay, boyfriend, up you get," Wolfgang said, scrambling to his feet and pulling Antonio up after him.  He held out his other hand to Constance.

She let Wolfgang hoist her off the floor, adjusting her dress where it had started to ride up her thighs.  "Don't forget, I found him first," she teased.

"Maybe," said Wolfgang, "but I got him in bed first, so I still win."

"Can I get a drink?" Antonio interrupted.

And that was how he found himself sitting nervously on the edge of Wolfgang's bed again, this time watching the rock star rummage around in the minibar while Constance excused herself to the bathroom to wash her face.  He took the tiny bottle of vodka Wolfgang eventually offered and downed half of it like medicine, clenching his eyes as the alcohol burned through his chest and brought a flush to his cheeks.  

The bed dipped when Wolfgang perched at his side.  "Are you sure you're okay, Antonio?"

Antonio snorted, unsure how to respond.  Was he okay?  Maybe, maybe he would be.  Maybe if the two of them could just keep repeating what they had said downstairs until it made some kind of sense to him.

Wolfgang watched him, holding his silence.  They could just hear the sound of a running tap from inside the bathroom.

"I feel like- like I've been trying to do a puzzle and you're handing me a Lego," Antonio said vaguely.  

He started to tip the rest of the vodka into his mouth, but Wolfgang pulled it out of his hand.  He screwed the cap back on and dropped it onto the bedside table.  "That was kind of beautiful," Wolfgang said, "but it also sounds like you might want to keep your head on.  Constance told me what happened when she let you have tequila the night you met."

"So you just- you just talk about me?  You and- and  _Constance_!"

"Because we care about you."

Antonio rolled his eyes.

"We do!" Wolfgang insisted, grabbing his arm.  "Don't be like that!  She felt awful after you left on Thursday.  She wanted me to bring you back to Aloysia's at lunch Friday so we could figure this out, but you were AWOL."

"Wolfgang- look, if this is some kind of prank, will you just tell me?  I'm begging you."

"Come on, Antonio.  When did I ever lie to you?  When did Constance?"

Antonio studied him for a moment, searching his face for any trace of mischief, for anything that might hint at another shoe waiting to drop.  Nothing, just Wolfgang staring at him earnestly with those wide brown eyes.  Antonio winced, bracing himself as he asked, "You both want us to all three be a- a couple?"

"What else do you need me to say?"  Wolfgang sighed, taking Antonio's hand in both of his and bringing it to his lips.  "I'm obsessed with you, Antonio Salieri. I want you to be my boyfriend.  Romantically.  Sexually.  For real.  I told E! News, and now I'm telling you.  And I'll keep telling you until you actually listen to me."

Antonio let out the breath he'd been holding, a noise that was half-laugh and half-sigh.  Wolfgang Mozart really was obsessed with him?  Constance wanted him back too?  For once in his life, in anyone's life, someone was trying to offer him a chance to have everything he wanted.  What kind of idiot would he be to back out now?

Seeing the change in his expression, a smile spread across Wolfgang's face.  "Good," he said.  "Now, will you please kiss me?"

"If I have to," Antonio grumbled, biting back his own wry grin.

Wolfgang clambered up onto his knees, closing the space between them as he ran his fingers through Antonio's hair.  He cupped his chin in his other hand and tilted his head back, appraising his upturned face for a moment with that same warm look in his eyes.  "You look really hot with eyeliner," he murmured before he tenderly pressed his lips to Antonio's.

The last time they had really kissed was Tuesday morning, when Wolfgang had winked at Antonio and walked out of rehearsal knowing full well that Antonio would wait a little while and follow.  Wolfgang had pushed him onto the couch near the empty reception table, climbed into his lap, and spent several breathless minutes making out with him while he ran his hands through his hair.  Tonight, his kisses were slower, gentler, without the thrill of knowing that someone might turn the corner and discover them at any moment.  Tonight, they had the luxury of an entire future that lay ahead of them, of a holiday weekend with no plans, of a committed relationship.  Wolfgang Mozart had said that he was obsessed with him.  Wolfgang Mozart wanted to be his boyfriend, to be able to kiss him like this any time, long-term.  Antonio grabbed him by the waist and pulled him closer until Wolfgang's knee was digging into the side of his thigh.

He was considering pushing him over and climbing on top of him when Constance emerged from the bathroom, radiant even with her face stripped of its red carpet makeup. Antonio broke away from Wolfgang and eyed her guiltily. He started to cross his hands over his lap, a reflexive impulse to cover up his usual reaction to Wolfgang Mozart's mouth, but Wolfgang made an impatient noise and dragged the hand back to his own hip.  He buried his face in Antonio's neck, grazing his teeth and lips across his skin while Antonio tried not to moan aloud in front of Constance.

But Constance wasn't annoyed or repelled: in fact, she stepped out of her pumps and kicked them into the corner of the room, saying, "About damn time.  Where would we be without you, Wolfgang?"

Wolfgang lifted his head long enough to say, "Single!" before dipping his tongue into Antonio's ear.  A strangled gasp hissed between Antonio's teeth despite his efforts to contain it.

When Constance put her hands on his knees and pulled them far enough apart to kneel between them, the blood rushed out of the upper half of Antonio's body so quickly that he nearly fainted.  She leaned forward, slipping her hands under his jacket and running them up his chest.  Her torso was pressed firmly against his erection; meanwhile Wolfgang caught his mouth up in another kiss, sliding his tongue along his lower lip and then sucking on it until Antonio groaned.  Constance's hands moved across his chest to the top button of his shirt; she unfastened it and then kissed the newly-exposed skin.  Her face was still damp from the sink, cool soft skin and hot breath grazing through Antonio's chest hair.  Antonio's breath hitched, his heart racing: Wolfgang and Constance were kissing him at the same time.  The lead singer of the Divine Libertines and the dazzling woman with whom he'd fallen in love both had their mouths on him, on Antonio Salieri, on a corporate suit from Jersey with a nine-to-five marketing job.  Constance unbuttoned the next button, trailing her lips lower and kissing his sternum, then another.  Antonio's hips twitched of their own accord, spots appearing in his vision as she slid lower and lower between his legs.  She undid the last button and untucked his shirt, the subtle friction of the fabric as it brushed across the outside of his underwear provoking another ragged gasp.  His grip on Wolfgang's hip must have gotten too tight; Wolfgang pulled his hand away and slid one of Antonio's fingers into his mouth, swirling his tongue around it.  Antonio clenched the bedsheets in his other hand, leaning back as Constance ran her hands down the length of his bare chest and over his stomach, then followed the edge of his waistband with her fingertips.  "Guys-" he started to say, gritting his teeth, but suddenly Wolfgang's lips were on his.  He guided Antonio's hand to the front of his jeans and rubbed himself against his palm, smiling against his mouth when Antonio gasped again.  He pushed his hips harder against Constance, an awkward, uncontrollable thrust; when she leaned down to kiss the patch of hair beneath his navel he couldn't hold it back anymore.  He came hard in his pants, moaning into Wolfgang's open mouth and thrusting against Constance like a fucking teenager.

Wolfgang broke away first, still holding Antonio's hand against his own erection.  He cocked his head, looking from Antonio to Constance in a sort of hazy bewilderment.  "What did you do?" he asked her.

"Not enough," Constance said.  She put her hands on Antonio's knees and pushed herself to her feet.

Antonio flopped backward onto the bed, his pulse still echoing in his ears like a drumbeat.  He wrested his hand away from Wolfgang and covered his face with arms.  "Shit," he panted.  "Shit.  I'm sorry."

To his surprise, Wolfgang just chuckled. He stretched out at his side and rested his chin on Antonio's bare chest.  "I think you were trying to warn us," he said, patting Antonio's stomach.

Antonio lifted an elbow and peered down at Wolfgang.  "I'm sorry," he said again.

"Uh, for what?" he grinned.

"Well... we were, uh, we were going to..." he stole a glance at Constance, but quickly looked away when he caught her studying the front of his trousers.  "You know."

Wolfgang patted his stomach again.  "You're not getting out of here that easily, boyfriend."

"Get off him, Wolfi.  Let him clean up," said Constance, swatting at Wolfgang's ass.

"Maybe I like lying on him!  What's the rush?  It's like ten o'clock!"

"What's the rush?" Constance repeated incredulously.  "Easy for you to say when you've been sleeping with him for weeks already!"

Antonio propped himself up on his elbows, looking from Wolfgang to Constance as the full scope of their situation started to set in.  Her knees were red from the carpet, her dress was rumpled, her hair was mussed.  She was standing between his thighs.  He gently pushed Wolfgang off his chest and sat up the rest of the way, unable to stop himself from staring, from raking his eyes over her as he basked in the realization that she actually wanted him despite everything.  Sure, there had been a little bit of a false start, but he was probably going to have sex with Constance Weber tonight.  He was going to have sex with Constance Weber  _and_ Wolfgang Mozart.  And they both wanted him.

Constance had been watching him while this series of epiphanies crossed his mind; they must have reflected in his face, for she crooked a finger under his chin and pulled him into a gentle kiss.  If he hadn't been afraid of scaring her off, Antonio could have thrown his arms around her and held her against him for the rest of the night.

She licked her lips when she pulled away and lifted an eyebrow.  "Did Wolfgang give you vodka?"

"He didn't drink that much of it," Wolfgang said, pointing to the mini bottle on the bedside table.

Constance stepped out from between Antonio's knees and snatched the bottle up.  "Good," she said, dropping onto the bed next to Wolfgang and unscrewing the cap.  She tapped her foot against the outside of Antonio's thigh.  "Go!"

Antonio stood, grimacing at the uncomfortable bunching at the front of his pants.  He shucked off the suit jacket and draped it carefully atop a pile of Wolfgang's laundry.  "I think I ruined the trousers you got me," he muttered as he stepped into the bathroom.  He could hear Wolfgang's answering giggle even after closing the door.

The ensuite bathroom was an oasis of quiet, its cool marble surfaces reflected in the enormous mirror that covered the wall behind the double sink.  Antonio quickly peeled off his trousers and boxer briefs, bunching them up and dropping them atop Wolfgang's pile of used towels.  He raked his fingers through his hair, absentmindedly reaching for the elastic that was usually around his wrist and blinking in confusion at his reflection when it wasn't there.  Had Wolfgang taken it again?  He rolled his eyes, unable to hide his smile.  Where was he putting them all?  Antonio had another pack of them at home, in any case.

His thoughts trailed off and he found himself studying his image in the mirror for a long, quiet moment.  What the hell did Constance and Wolfgang see when they looked at him?  He was just a bloke-y looking dude from Jersey, a little taller than both of them, with a neat beard that was barely more than a goatee and hair that was at that awkward length where it wouldn't all stay in a ponytail.  His eyes were set a little too deep, his chin was a little too large, and the hollows in his cheeks couldn't quite commit to being dimples like Frank's.  But they wanted him.  They wanted him and they wanted to date him!  It didn't make any sense.  He grabbed a washcloth, ran it under the faucet, and got to work cleaning himself off.  The longer he took in the bathroom, the sooner Wolfgang and Constance might come to their senses about all this.

He tossed the washcloth onto the pile of towels and his soiled clothes when he was done, turning back to his reflection again.  A marketing manager from New Jersey wearing nothing but a rumpled, unbuttoned shirt and a bewildered expression stared back.  Antonio covered his forehead with his hand, shaking his head at himself.  Was this really happening?

He heard the subtle buzz of his phone and discovered that it was still in the breast pocket of his shirt.  Frank had just texted him:  _Movie's over._ _Going out for drinks with THE Aloysia!  You guys want to come?_

A few smartass responses flashed through Antonio's thoughts in quick succession, but he settled on answering,  _We're a little busy._

Over his shoulder, he spotted the reflection of a terrycloth bathrobe with the hotel's insignia on the pocket.  He shrugged off his dress shirt and swapped it for the robe, tying the sash around his waist and pocketing his phone.  At least that gave him some semblance of dignity.  He gripped the edge of the counter and stared at his reflection for another moment.

Wolfgang  _and_ Constance?

It was a little hard to convince himself at this point that he had misunderstood their intentions.

He checked his phone - a single question mark from Frank - and steeled himself before opening the door again.

The scene unfolding on the bed surprised Antonio so much that he very nearly retreated right back into the bathroom.

Constance was lying on her back, her skirt hiked up to her waist, and Wolfgang's face was buried between her legs.

Antonio steadied himself against the door frame, his heart jumping into his throat.  Between the long, bare length of Constance's leg, the way she was gripping Wolfgang's hair with one hand, and the quiet gasps that punctuated her breathing, he wasn't sure what to take in first.  

He had spent a reprehensible amount of time imagining what Constance would be like in this exact scenario.  Well, maybe not exact: it hadn't occurred to him last summer to imagine that the second person involved would be the lead singer of the Divine Libertines instead of Antonio himself.  He had tried to picture the way she would tilt her head back, the way she would catch her lower lip between her teeth, the way she would flex her hips and curl her toes with each sigh.  Yet after everything that had happened between them, he never thought he would be here, in this moment.  He never would have imagined Constance spotting him and stretching out her free arm, beckoning until he came near enough for her to spread her hand across his chest, working her thumb under the lapel of his borrowed robe.

Wolfgang lifted his head, that mischievous grin spreading across his face at the sight of Antonio in a hotel bathrobe; he unwound his arms from Constance's thighs and used the hastily-tied sash to reel Antonio closer.  Constance flopped back onto the bed, interlacing her fingers over her forehead and staring at the ceiling while she seemed to be catching her breath.  In the meantime, Wolfgang rose to his knees and slid his arms around Antonio's neck.  He brushed his lips over Antonio's and withdrew, studying his face inquisitively.  Antonio closed the space between them at once, only realizing after his tongue was in Wolfgang's mouth that he had been trying to verify if he was okay with - well, with the taste of Constance.  It was too late to reconsider now, Antonio thought.  In all the times he had imagined going down on Constance Weber, Antonio had tried to prepare himself for a worst-case scenario, but Wolfgang's mouth was just a little saltier than it had been earlier, with the musky smell of sweat and floral soap clinging to his cheeks.

Wolfgang wobbled slightly on the mattress as Constance sat up; he tightened his grip on Antonio to maintain his balance.  Antonio glanced down in time to see Constance sliding one of Wolfgang's belts off his waist and flinging it onto the floor.  She fumbled with the front of his jeans until she was able to undo the button and tug them down to his knees.  "Okay, okay!" Wolfgang said, releasing Antonio and climbing off of the bed.  He unfastened a second belt and stepped out of his shoes, shucking off his ridiculous glitter coat and letting is slip to the floor in a cascade of sequins.

With a tenderness that she hadn't used on Wolfgang's jeans, Constance wound her arms around Antonio's waist and coaxed him onto the bed with her.  He felt his pulse rate spike, though his previous incident had still been a little too recent for him to respond to her touch as _firmly_ as he normally would have.  Constance kissed the exposed part of his chest, then moved upward to his collarbone and his throat.  They were kneeling together on the bed, her golden hair tickling his mouth and nose as she sucked a little too hard at a pulse point on his neck.  Was Constance Weber trying to give him a hickey?

Antonio let his hands rest on the outsides of her thighs, his touch light and tentative at first.  He trailed his fingers up her legs until he felt the bunched-up hem of her dress and realized that he was cupping Constance Weber's bare ass in his hands.  Emboldened when she made a contented humming noise against his throat, Antonio pulled her against him, prodding at the skirt with his thumbs in the hopes of edging it even higher.  Constance leaned away for moment and he half-expected her to reprimand him for his audacity, but instead she pushed one of her knees between his and ground against his bare thigh, hot, wet flesh on flesh.

When Antonio nudged at the hem again, Constance took the hint: she released him long enough to reach down and pull the entire dress over her head in one motion.  And there she was, there was Constance Weber, naked and straddling Antonio's thigh.  Was it okay for him to stare?  She was breathtaking, all smooth skin and pale curves, wisps of blond hair catching the light from the open bathroom door.  Her long golden curls trailed over her bare shoulders as she leaned forward; only then did Antonio realize that Wolfgang was standing behind him.  Constance's bare breasts pressed against his collarbone and Wolfgang's chest was against his back as their lips met over his shoulder.  Antonio leaned against Wolfgang, grateful that he was back there to catch him in case Antonio passed out.  Of course, then Wolfgang went and made things worse when he wrapped his arms around Antonio's waist and untied the sash of his bathrobe, slipping it off of his shoulders and leaving him just as naked as the rest of them.

Constance broke away from Wolfgang and leaned back, her eyes traveling down Antonio's bare torso almost exactly the way he had been staring at her a moment ago.  Antonio straightened his back, making half an effort to suck in his stomach until he felt Wolfgang bury a kiss between his shoulderblades and shivered at the unexpected scrape of his rough jaw.  Constance slipped her arms around his neck again and tilted her hips forward, rubbing herself languidly against Antonio's thigh.  He let his hands drift up her sides, still halfway convinced that she was going to push him away at any moment, but suddenly Constance huffed impatiently and released his neck.  She seized both of his hands in hers and dragged them up to her breasts, pursing her lips at him before she went back to rocking her pelvis against his leg.  Antonio sat unmoving for a moment while he tried to assess his situation.  Wolfgang was kissing his neck, wrapping his arms around Antonio's waist; Constance was gripping his shoulders and grinding against his thigh, her head thrown back and her eyes closed; and Antonio was kneeling between them like a nervous virgin with his hands planted delicately on Constance's breasts, exactly where she had put them.

In his own defense, he had never had sex with two people at once before.  In fact, he'd never had sex with someone who identified as a woman before.  He hadn't even been able to admit that he was bisexual until Constance Weber had put on his oversized Divine Libertines t-shirt and crawled into his bed that night.  They'd had so many near-misses in the following week: the relatively-modest nude she had sent, their interrupted attempt at phone sex, and of course the three-day weekend that had never happened.  Constance had been trying to get into bed with him for as long as he'd been imagining getting into bed with her.  He just hadn't expected the bed to belong to Wolfgang Mozart.

Fuck it, Antonio thought suddenly.  If they both wanted him as a boyfriend, he might as well act like one.  He flicked one thumb experimentally across Constance's nipple and she opened her eyes in surprise, her breath hitching.  That was encouragement enough: Antonio leaned in and caught the tip of her breast between his lips, rolling it and teasing it with his tongue.  Constance actually moaned, a low, wanton sound that sent a hot shiver straight to Antonio's groin.   He slid his free hand back down to cup her ass, wondering if he could memorize the shape of her body and the feeling of her smooth skin.  He matched the movement of his tongue to the rhythm of her hips.

Wolfgang nipped at Antonio's ear, his warm breath ghosting over the side of his face, and then whispered, "Can I fuck you?"

Without lifting his head, Antonio unwound one arm from Constance and reached back to find Wolfgang's erection, positioning it against his ass.  Wolfgang's answering chuckle tickled his neck. 

It took a little bit of maneuvering.  Constance released Antonio in the meantime and went over to the minibar, shuffling discerningly through the bottles while the two of them got ready.  After a few minutes Antonio ended up on his back with Wolfgang standing at the edge of the bed and holding his legs by his waist.  Any other evening and that would have been enough, but after draining a tiny bottle of some kind of brown-looking drink Constance grabbed a second condom from the bedside table and rejoined them on the bed.  Antonio inhaled sharply as she began rolling the condom over his erection.  She paused and caught his eye.  "Can I?"

"Uh- I mean, can you?" He glanced up at Wolfgang, who had stilled and was watching her curiously.  "Is that possible?"

Wolfgang shrugged.  "Probably.  I saw it in a porno once."

"Oh, well then it has to be possible," Antonio muttered sarcastically.

Constance lowered herself carefully onto Antonio's erection, giggling when a sudden thrust from Wolfgang jostled her forward.  She craned her neck far enough to stick her tongue out at him, then bent down and kissed Antonio's cheek.  "Are you okay?" she murmured.

Antonio didn't trust himself to answer, gritting his teeth and nodding faintly.  "Maybe- if Wolfgang-"

"Hold still, Wolfi!" Constance ordered, and Wolfgang obeyed with a melodramatic groan.

Antonio took a deep breath to try to steady himself, but he had never felt headier in his life.  How many times had he imagined Constance straddling him like this, her back arched and her head thrown back?  Of course, she was leaning forward now to avoid colliding with Wolfgang, her breasts grazing over his chest and her golden hair forming a curtain alongside their faces.  He wanted to turn his head and breathe in the smell of her shampoo for the rest of the night, but Wolfgang was twitching his hips impatiently and Constance's lower lip was caught between her teeth.  Antonio nodded, closing his eyes and trying to think of the blandest thing he could imagine to keep himself from losing it too quickly this time.  An hour ago he had come in his pants because they both kissed him at the same time.  How long was he going to be able to endure this?

Not long, it turned out, though a little bit longer than Wolfgang, at least.  It was Wolfgang's strangled groan that undid him; his own hips thrust upward so suddenly that Constance nearly toppled onto the bed.  She managed to keep up the rhythm of her own hips until they were both finished.

The three of them were still for a long moment except for their ragged breathing, a tangled pile of sweaty limbs and heaving chests.  Antonio unclenched his fingers from Constance's hips and flexed them before running his hands up her back, relieved to find that she was panting just as hard as he and Wolfgang were.  She was draped over him, their hips still pressed together, her forehead against his cheek.  Over her shoulder, he saw Wolfgang, still holding onto his legs as he tried to catch his own breath.  It wasn't the most elegant position, but it was definitely efficient.

It was Wolfgang who broke the silence when he sighed loudly and said, "So, what did you two think of the movie?"

Antonio rolled his eyes, but he couldn't fight back his wide grin.  

"Oh, a pure masterpiece," Constance said wryly.  "Except, I do think Joey Lange was a better Mozart than you are."

"Oh yeah?"  Wolfgang wrapped an arm around Constance's waist and leaned forward, crushing her down on top of Antonio while she pretended to protest.

Antonio grunted  as the air was forced out of his lungs by the joint weight of his giggling lovers.  To his surprise, he found himself thinking that if he had to die, this was probably the best way to go.

The three of them broke apart after that, smiling as they migrated toward the bathroom, where they cleaned themselves up in the sinks and stole glances at each others' bodies in the mirror.  Antonio had been here plenty of times with Wolfgang, which had been hard enough to wrap his head around at first, but to have Constance here as well was more than he ever would have dared to hope for.  Maybe he was being sappy, but it made so much more sense for her to be here with them; when he had been alone with Wolfgang, his thoughts had turned to her constantly, tinged with that nagging dread that she would be heartbroken when she learned that her two ex-boyfriends had started sleeping together.  It never, ever could have occurred to Antonio that Constance's solution would be to... join them.

They crawled into the bed after that, actually getting under the sheets this time.  Wolfgang was stretched out on his back and snoring in a matter of minutes, pieces of hair still stuck to his forehead with drying sweat and traces of glittery makeup smeared across one cheek.  Antonio closed his eyes and tried to calm his thoughts.  It was lucky that they had done this at Wolfgang's place, since his bed was only a double and Constance shared a narrow bunkbed with one of her sisters.  He bit back a laugh: lucky?  It was nothing short of a miracle that this had happened at all!  For once in his life, for one shining Christmas Eve night, Antonio had been granted a peek at what real happiness might feel like.  He listened to Wolfgang's snores and Constance's gentle breathing, his smile growing wider in the privacy of darkness.  Wolfgang  _and_ Constance!

It was impossible to calm himself down enough to sleep.  Antonio's thoughts raced ahead, wondering if the peace would last through Christmas day, through the end of the year, maybe even through New Year's Eve.  He imagined the three of them at a party, maybe himself and Wolfgang each kissing one of Constance's cheeks as the ball dropped.  Frank would lose his mind.

But how long could it go on?  How long until it became clear who the real couple was, and who was just here for now?

How long until that vision he had had in the taxi of Constance and Wolfgang as happy parents came true?  How long until he was weird Uncle Antonio who always shows up for holidays but isn't really a part of this family?

"I know you're awake," Constance whispered, her voice breaking into his thoughts.

Antonio started and opened his eyes.  She was lying on her side facing him, one stripe of light falling across her cheek from a place where the curtains didn't meet.  On his other side, Wolfgang let out a long, low snore and Constance grinned.  She slid closer to Antonio on the bed, studying his face in the darkness, tracing the shape of his cheek with her fingertips.  "What?" asked Antonio.

"I missed you," she murmured.  "I almost forgot what you were like."

He braced himself.  "What I'm like?"

"Your eyes.  Your skin.  Your voice.  The way you look at me like you can't believe we know each other."

Antonio felt a flush crawl across his cheeks.  "Well, I can't," he muttered.  "I still can't believe you're forgiving me."

"Me neither," Constance said.  Her voice was light, but Antonio saw the furrow that appeared between her brows.  She patted his chest and withdrew her arm.  "Next time you get insecure, maybe tell me what you're thinking instead of cheating on me?"

"Cheating on you?" Antonio repeated.  "What?"

Constance rolled her eyes.  "Fine, I know we weren't facebook-official, but I don't think I was out of line to assume we were supposed to be exclusive, Antonio.  Plus, you told me the whole thing with Food Cart Lorenzo, remember?  So I know you only slept with him that weekend because of-"

"Wait, Constance, I didn't sleep with Lorenzo!" Antonio interrupted.

She broke off, her lips still parted around the rest of her sentence.  

"I didn't!  Not since the food cart!  I thought Wolfgang told you."

"But that picture he posted..."

"I didn't sleep with him!  I wouldn't!  I love you," Antonio said, propping himself up on one elbow.  "Anyway, he and Stephanie-"

Constance seized him by the back of his neck and kissed him before he could finish his thought.  "Oh god, Antonio," she whispered when they broke apart.  "Shit.  Antonio, shit, I'm so sorry.  I thought- all this time I thought... oh god."  And she wound her arms around him and pulled him down in a tight embrace.

Antonio smiled, his mouth crushed against her neck and his nose buried in her hair.  "Next time you get insecure, maybe tell me what you're thinking instead of accusing me of cheating?" he teased, his voice muffled.

"You bastard," she laughed, loosening her grip enough to kiss his forehead, then his temple and his cheek.  Then she wriggled away and studied him, cupping his face in her hands.  "Did you just say you still love me?"

"Uh- well, yeah," Antonio admitted.  "Of course I do."

"Really?  Even right now?"

Antonio tilted his head in her hands until he could press his lips against her palm.

"But... if you love me, and if you didn't cheat on me, then why did you walk out on me that night?  You really didn't trust me to talk to Wolfgang for a couple hours?"

"I'm sorry," he mumbled into her hand.

"I know, Antonio," she said gently.  "But- do you trust me now?  When I say that I want to be with you, do you trust that?"

He sighed and pulled away from her, dropping his head back onto the pillow and closing his eyes.  "It's not that I think you're lying, it's just- it's me.  You'll- you'll get to know me and you'll see.  It always happens."

"What happens?"

"People leave.  You and Wolfgang, you'll leave.  But it's normal.  It always happens.  It's not your fault."

Constance didn't have a rebuttal for that.  For a long moment, the only sound in the room was Wolfgang's heavy breathing.  

Antonio felt his stomach start to sink: only a few hours after she had asked him to be her boyfriend again, and he had already managed to scare Constance off.  She was probably sitting there trying to figure out how to get away from this impending train wreck as quickly as possible.

"Antonio?" she said at last.

He opened his eyes slowly, his heart pounding.  There it was, there was that look of condescending pity he'd seen on so many faces over the years.  Constance was looking at him the same way she had the first time he'd admitted that he'd spent his childhood in a boys' home, and that he'd gone on to lose his brother and age out of the foster system.  She was looking at him like she'd just realized that he wasn't actually a normal guy, that he had so much less than she did, that he deserved so much less.

She found his hand beneath the sheets and clasped it.  "Antonio, have you ever been to a psychiatrist?"

He winced.  It probably wasn't a good sign when someone asked a question like that after sex.  "One of my foster moms was a therapist," he said quietly.  "Dr. Mocenigo.  But they only had me for six months before their real son found out I was gay and made them choose between him or me."  He shrugged.  "She- she used to sit on the stool in my room and ask me questions about my parents while I was trying to do my homework."

"Allie has a good psychiatrist," Constance said.  "Would you be okay with seeing her?  I'll go with you if that helps.  We can bring Wolfgang, too."

Antonio shrugged again.  "Would my health insurance cover it?"

"We'll figure it out."

He nodded, rolling onto his back.

"Is that okay?"

"Sure."

"Do you know why I'm asking?"

"Because I'm a fuckup," Antonio said, his voice a little more ragged than he expected.

"Will you please look at me?"

He turned his head reluctantly, wondering if he looked as pitiful as he felt.

"I want you to be happy because I love you, too," Constance said firmly.  "I love you, Antonioni Rigatoni."

Antonio quickly looked back up at the ceiling, blinking in a vain effort to keep his eyes from filling with tears.  

Rigatoni.


	18. Chapter 18

When the car Wolfgang had sent dropped him off on a secluded, tree-lined neighborhood in Park Slope, Antonio wasn't sure what to expect.  He hadn't been this far away from traffic in a long time: in fact, once the car pulled away the street was silent but for birdsong and the laughter of children in the park on the next block.  The sidewalk was flanked with stately cars and brownstones, the remnants of the latest snow scraped away from windshields and sprawling stoops with meticulous uniformity.  He spied Wolfgang lounging against a mahogany entryway nearby, his scarf wrapped around his mouth and nose.  With his unkempt hair and ripped jeans, in a neighborhood like this he could only have been a rock star or a hobo.  He perked up when he spotted Antonio, his muffled voice calling, "Fidanzato!"

Antonio bit back his answering smile and mounted the steps of the townhouse, joining him on the stoop.  "What am I doing here?" he asked as Wolfgang noisily kissed his cheek.

"Constance came by while you were at work.  She liked it," he said, producing a key from his pocket and throwing open the heavy door.  It wasn't quite an answer.

Antonio peered inside: the entire main level of the narrow townhouse was open concept, all gleaming wood floors and crisp white walls.  A sitting area was clustered by the bay window on the left; straight ahead was a kitchen with so many stainless steel appliances and marble surfaces that it looked like the final minute of any given HGTV makeover show.  Past the kitchen and dining table he could see enormous glass doors facing a patio and, beyond that, a cramped back yard.  "Fuck," Antonio muttered, wiping his feet a few more times on the mat before he stepped inside.  "And how much would they charge you for a place like this?"

"It has five bedrooms," said Wolfgang, slipping past another question as he closed the doors behind them.

"What did Constance say?"

"She loved it."

Antonio looked around the main floor again, eyeing the ornate wooden staircase that ran along the wall.  Wolfgang had been doing most of his house-hunting with Constance's input, though Antonio had watched enough home reno shows to enjoy tagging along whenever he was off work, poking through ridiculous townhouses and condos that he would never have been able to afford himself, then returning to his shitty studio each night.  Well, most nights.  Some nights.  Once the three of them were together, it was hard to part ways.  Antonio wouldn't have admitted it to Wolfgang, but at the end of his lease next month he was considering finally moving out of New Jersey to be closer to wherever Wolfgang ended up.  Even if things fell apart between them, he told himself it would still make his commute easier if he didn't have to worry about catching the PATH train all the time.

As for Constance, she had moved into Aloysia's new condo in SoHo on New Year's Day, which put her at a five minute walk from Antonio's office.  On days when Lorenzo had opted to work on the Figaro commercial through lunch, Antonio, Frank, and Wolfgang would bring takeout to Aloysia and Constance, the five of them eating together in her sunny little breakfast nook.  Wolfgang and Antonio had even spent a few nights at the condo, sleeping chastely in a pile of intertwined limbs on Constance's double bed, limiting themselves to kisses lest Aloysia hear and throw her boyfriends out on their asses.  It had been a month since the premier of Joey Lange's movie, and the closer Aloysia got to her delivery date, the less tolerance she had for anyone's company but her sisters' or Frank's.

The movie itself had been disastrous.  Rosenberg's #toomanynotes campaign had trended for more than a week after the premier date, accompanied by increasingly scathing viral memes that featured Wolfgang's likeness as well as Joey Lange's.  Kia had even threatened to pull funding for the Figaro commercial, sending Lorenzo into a panic until Joe ended up turning to Antonio, a permanent fixture at all their rehearsals, to step in.  If anyone could make a case for the Divine Libertines' talent, it was one of their most faithful fans who now happened to be the guitarist's brother and the lead singer's boyfriend.  He had managed to come out of the meeting with an intact commercial, sacrificing half of the original budget as a compromise, for which Joe had had his assistant Margie write Antonio a 'personal' thank-you card.

Perhaps the most jarring effect of the fallout had been the resignation of Jean-Paul, Wolfgang's long-suffering assistant, though in all honesty he had probably been looking for an excuse for a while.  Wolfgang had taken to managing his own schedule ever since with middling results: in a way, it was a good thing for Wolfgang's sanity that the house hunt was his only obligation outside of the commercial.  The Divine Libertines had been trying to put together a concert tour for the fall, but with the tensions mounting between Ziggy and the rest of the band and all of the drama in the fandom, the plans had dissolved and the tour had been postponed.  Antonio had been secretly relieved: assuming their relationship lasted that long, a tour would mean losing both his brother and his boyfriend for weeks at a time.  In Antonio's perfect world, he, Constance, and Wolfgang would just quit their jobs and spend the rest of their lives piled onto a couch together watching television, eating takeout, and having sex.

If the turmoil was weighing on Wolfgang at all, he was hiding it well.  Antonio was convinced that he hadn't seen the smile drop off Wolfgang's face since the night of the premier.  Wolfgang had already devised a strategy for getting back his fanbase by putting out a new album, and brought it up whenever he got a chance.  To that end, he had turned Jean-Paul's room into a makeshift studio, filling half of it with boxes of his many ugly shirts in preparation for his move, and the other half with state-of-the-art recording equipment and various instruments that Antonio wasn't even sure Wolfgang knew how to play.  Antonio had been at his penthouse a few times when Wolfgang was composing, an uncanny experience that always made him wonder anew what his past self would have thought if he had known that he would grow up to date Wolfgang Mozart, that one day he would spend his free time helping Wolfgang Mozart with a house hunt.

"Come look!" Wolfgang said, lacing his fingers through Antonio's and leading him up to the next floor of the townhouse.  This story was just as grandiose as the first: on either side of the hallway was a master bedroom with its own set of bay windows, one looking out over the street and the other over the patio and garden.  The bathrooms had even more marble than the kitchen, one with an enormous garden tub and the other with a glass shower.  "There are three more bedrooms upstairs with a shared bathroom," Wolfgang recited, "and there's also a walk-out basement with a full wine cellar."

Antonio couldn't resist kissing him. "You sound like you swallowed your realtor," he teased.  He looked around the empty bedroom.  "Where is she, anyway?"

"Come look at the top floor!" urged Wolfgang.  "The whole roof is skylights!"  He tugged on Antonio's arm as he tried to pull him toward the door.

Antonio held his ground.  "That's the third question you've dodged," he said.  "What's going on?  How much is this place?"

"It's- it's not on the market anymore."

"Then why are we looking at it?"

"Because I bought it."

Antonio's brows shot up; he dropped Wolfgang's hand when he recoiled in surprise.  "You bought this house?  This whole house?  Seriously?  This place is a mansion, Wolfgang!  What do you need all this space for?"

"I paid cash!  I had savings!"

"That wasn't my question.  What's going on with you?"

Wolfgang drifted over to the bay window, leaning his forehead against the pane.

"What is it?" Antonio asked, following him.  He turned Wolfgang around by the shoulders and stooped to meet his eye.  "You're freaking me out."

Wolfgang stole a glance at him from beneath his lashes.  "If I ask you a question, do you promise to say yes?"

"No."

"Forget it then."

"No, ask me!  What is it?"

"I- I want you to move in with me."

Antonio's grip on his shoulders tightened.  "What?"

"You can have this room!  With the view of the yard!  And if you ever need space just tell me, and I'll go upstairs and stay there until you say I can come out, and I won't make a sound so you'll be alone whenever you want!  But I just- I want you near me.  Will you think about it?"

Antonio looked around the room again: it was a spacious and bright, more like a house in a rural suburb than any apartment he'd ever rented in Jersey.  He couldn't even imagine his secondhand bed frame and wobbly Ikea shelf in a place like this.  "Wolfgang-"

But Wolfgang cut him off.  "Constance said she just moved and she's tired of moving but she'll come if you do!  And then- then we could be together all the time.  We could- we could watch Netflix until we fall asleep and make each other breakfast and kiss you when you leave for work in the morning, like a family.  And I paid up front so there's no rent or anything, no mortgages, just- just property taxes or whatever."

"Wolfgang-"

"And just think of how happy Catgang will be to have an entire yard to run around in and all this space!  She'll freak out!  I mean, she could have her own room!  I know it's only been a couple months, but with you and Constance I've never been so sure of anything.  And if it goes wrong somehow I'll move out myself and let you both stay, so this would be your place.  I'll call my lawyer if you want it in writing, just to be sure!"

"Wolfgang, shut up for a second!" Antonio interrupted, and he pulled him into a tight hug.  It was probably all of Wolfgang's cologne making his eyes water, he told himself.  It definitely wasn't the image of waking up in this room on a sunny Saturday morning with Wolfgang and Constance on either side of him and Catstance curled up by his feet.  It definitely wasn't Wolfgang calling them a family.

"It's sudden, I know. I'm sorry," Wolfgang said into Antonio's chest.  "You don't have to, it's okay.  I just-"

"I'll do it," said Antonio.  "I'll move in."  He took a deep breath and got another lungful of Wolfgang's cologne, concentrating on the smell and the feeling of holding Wolfgang in his arms to distract his racing thoughts.  His therapist had been telling him to let go and let good things happen to him since their first session.  He could hear her voice in his head telling him to slow down, to appreciate the moment he was in now, to take on challenges only when they actually presented themselves.  Would their comfortable threesome break apart someday?   Maybe.  Probably.  But not today. Not soon.  He kissed the top of Wolfgang's head.  "I'll move in," he said again, "but you have to promise you'll stop calling my cat 'Catgang'."

He felt Wolfgang relax against him, though he scoffed and said, "Only if you admit it's a much better name than 'Catstance'."

"You're going to confuse her.  She'll think that's really her name."

Wolfgang buried his face in Antonio's neck with a contented sigh. "Remember when you didn't make jokes?  I kind of miss that."

Antonio just held him, hiding his smile in his boyfriend's hair.

 

 

 

 

"What a good day, am I right, Tony?  A great day!"

Antonio fought the impulse to roll his eyes.  Of course Rosenberg had been standing outside Joe's office the whole time.  Of course he already knew this promotion was coming.  Rosenberg seemed to have a hand in everything that happened in the office these days.

"I wish I could have been there when he told you!  The CEO himself, lifting you up from a lowly marketing manager to head of marketing in the eastern corridor!  It's like- like Atlas lifting the earth up into the clouds!  I'm proud of you, you know?"

Antonio squinted at him.  "What are you talking about?"

"Just-" Rosenberg shot a glance at Joe's assistant Margie, who was completely engrossed in her phone, and lowered his voice.  "It's just that it's sort of thanks to me that this happened for you."

"You're saying Joe promoted me because of you?  Not because I helped save the Figaro commercial?"

Rosenberg put a finger to his lips, gesturing that they should wait until the elevator arrived before they went on.  Antonio complied, though Margie had yet to show interest in anything other than her phone, and Joe's office door was closed again.  Rosenberg had always been dramatic.

Once they were in the foolproof privacy of the elevator, he hissed, "It was your idea to bribe the band, sure, but I'm the one who actually did it!  It was my investment!  And the return--well, it couldn't have been better, could it?  The Figaro commercial lost half its budget, Kia dropped its idea to do a third commercial for the Giovanni, and now the Divine Libertines are falling apart!  If it wasn't for me, you never would have needed to save half of the Figaro commercial and Joe never would have given you the promotion!"

"Don't be ridiculous," Antonio muttered, but he could feel his stomach sinking faster than the elevator.  So Rosenberg had paid a member of the Divine Libertines off?  Well, that explained Ziggy's outrageous behavior these past few weeks.  Along with the twitter campaign, it also explained why the band hadn't been able to work together to book any gigs, and why they'd had to cancel their concert tour, too.

He shot a glance at Rosenberg, who had steepled his fingers and was tapping them anxiously against his lips.  For someone who knew so much about the Divine Libertines, how had he missed that interview where Wolfgang publicly declared that Antonio Salieri was his boyfriend?  Why did he still think they were in this together?

But by the time they arrived at his floor and the doors slid back, Antonio had realized that Rosenberg was right.  Sure, the idea to bribe the band into fighting had been an offhand comment, but Rosenberg had been pulling Antonio aside to hash out his plans to sabotage the Kia commercials since the beginning, hadn't he?  And when had Antonio ever stopped him?  When had he done anything but roll his eyes and wait for the plans to fail on their own?  If he had just spoken up in Stephanie's defense that first day that Rosenberg started complaining about the Seraglio commercial featuring a rock band, it might have changed the course of all of this.  If Rosenberg hadn't felt like Antonio supported him in his sabotage, maybe he never would have done any of it.  Maybe Wolfgang never would have seen his own fans turn on him in the fallout from #toomanynotes.  Maybe the Divine Libertines would be stronger than ever.

Maybe Frank and Wolfgang's futures would be a little more certain.

To his deep dissatisfaction, Rosenberg followed him off the elevator and trotted along at his side, trying to regale him with some story about something his wife had said the night before.  Antonio just nodded without making eye contact, hoping his obvious disinterest would be enough to scare him off.  It wasn't.  Of course it wasn't.

And that was how he ended up with Rosenberg in his wake when he arrived at Lorenzo's office to share the news of his promotion.  Marketing head was a big deal, essentially putting him on the same level as Stephanie over in the Philly office and giving him plenty of cause to travel back and forth between the two locations.  It meant that he'd be seeing a lot more of her.  Frank, Wolfgang, and Constance would be happy for him, sure, but Lorenzo was the only person who would really grasp what Antonio's new title meant for his career and, maybe more importantly, for their group of friends.

Last weekend, Stephanie had actually managed to make a rare trip over to New York to help Antonio with his move.  Their group had filled his tiny apartment, arms and clothes flying everywhere as they loaded up box after box.  Constance had taken charge of his cat, herding her into a cardboard carrier and cooing over her while Lorenzo and Frank wrapped his mattress in a tarp and hauled it into the freight elevator.  Stephanie had clambered up onto his counter and neatly packed his dishes away, lining those boxes with sheets of newspaper to keep them from clanking together in the back of the U-Haul Wolfgang had insisted on paying for.  Wolfgang, meanwhile, had taken it upon himself to rifle through the clothes Antonio had packed up the night before until he found a box of underwear, a pair of which he had tucked down the front of Constance's dress when Frank and Lorenzo were out of the room.  Constance had shot Antonio that long-suffering expression he loved, but then she'd pulled the underwear out of her bodice and shoved it into Wolfgang's jeans with a wicked smirk. 

The move took most of the day.  That evening, Antonio found himself standing in an airy master bedroom in a Park Slope townhouse, surrounded by piles of boxes and an unmade bed.  From downstairs, he could hear the rumble of his friends' voices and the clanking of dishes as Wolfgang boiled up an entire box of spaghetti and Constance made drinks.  He had closed his eyes and listened to the cadence of their conversation: this was exactly the kind of thing Dr. Gassmann told him to preserve, to hold onto whenever he started to doubt himself.  She called it his good memory bank.  This, this moment belonged there more than anything else, more than Wolfgang chasing Catstance around the foyer with a feather trying to get her to respond to "Catgang", more than Constance bringing a collection of photos she had taken of the three of them and sticking them to Antonio's wall while she monologued about how cute he had been in each moment, more than Frank gifting him with a tiny ceramic angel figurine that had once belonged to their mother.  It sounded stupid, but all of these people were here because they had wanted to help him move, because they loved him.  These were his friends.  His family.

If his oldest friend Lorenzo had to move away, this was the best time for it to happen.  For most of his life, Lorenzo had been all he had, the only person he could count on.  They had gone to the same schools, been bullied by the same homophobes, and now they worked for the same company.  Antonio shot a quick glance at Rosenberg--he wasn't leaving--before rapping on the door to Lorenzo's office.

After a long moment punctuated by Rosenberg's heavy breathing, Lorenzo threw open the door.  "Have you talked to Joe?" he demanded.

"I just came from his office," Antonio answered.  He eyed Lorenzo uneasily: he was agitated.  Whatever had upset him like this, Antonio hoped it wasn't the news of his own promotion.  It was true that the new title technically made him Lorenzo's boss, but that kind of thing had never mattered to him before.  "Are you okay?"

Lorenzo flung the door open the rest of the way, shooting a dark glance at the nearby members of the junior marketing team who were popping curiously up from their cubicles like meerkats. "Joe isn't approving my transfer."

A sharp inhale from Rosenberg, though whether it was surprise or disapproval Antonio couldn't be sure.

Antonio stepped into his office; Rosenberg slipped in too before he could close the door, making himself comfortable in one of the spare chairs.  "So... you won't be moving to Philadelphia?" Antonio asked cautiously.  He knew it wasn't what Lorenzo wanted, but it would have been ideal for him to have his oldest friend stay in the city.  Hell, once Constance officially moved into the townhouse there would be two more empty bedrooms on the top floor.  Antonio would have been over the moon if everyone he cared about could just live together under one roof.

But Lorenzo shook his head.  "I gave him my notice.  I'm quitting."

"What?" Antonio asked, grabbing his friend's arm.

"I have to!  He knows he's forcing me to quit!  Half my stuff is at Steph's place already, and I already told my landlord I'm breaking my lease!"

"But- well you could stay with us at the townhouse," Antonio said quickly, trying to ignore Rosenberg's presence in the room.

"No, I can't.  I'm moving in with Stephanie."

"Lorenzo-"

"Shut up, don't worry about it.   Worst case scenario I can go back to ringing people up at the grocery store," he said.  Antonio was pretty sure that that was supposed to be a joke, but neither of them bothered to muster a smile.  With another sigh, Lorenzo crossed his arms and leaned heavily against the wall.  "Well?  What did Joe want with you?"

"I feel like a dick bragging about it now.  He's making me head of marketing."

"Head of marketing?  Antonio, that's-"

"Better a dick in a good position than a lonely asshole," Rosenberg piped up.

Antonio and Lorenzo exchanged glances, unsure who he was trying to insult and whether he realized just how filthy that had sounded.  To Antonio's relief, he saw a flicker of laughter in Lorenzo's eyes.

Rosenberg wasn't finished: "I mean, you could be abandoned and disgraced right now like that pitiful Mozart.  Did you hear, he's out there trying to throw together an album without a label!  He's producing it himself!"

"Uh, Rosenberg-" Lorenzo started to say, glancing toward Antonio, but Antonio shook his head.

"Did you hear the single he tried to release on soundcloud?  What was it called again?  The one with the flute?"

Over on his desk, Lorenzo's cell phone lit up with an incoming call.  He clasped Antonio's shoulder before going to answer it, grumbling, "We both know you know the name of the song, Rosenberg.  I'm sure you've listened to nothing else since he posted it."

Rosenberg bolted to his feet, clearing his throat and straightening his tie.  "Well," he huffed, "I can't say I expected anything less from the man responsible for tanking the Figaro commercial.  Honestly, Tony, I think we both know why the company is content to let Mr. Da Ponte resign."

"You know what, Rosenberg?" Antonio blurted, a hot wave of indignation coursing over him.  He glanced back at Lorenzo, who had just picked up his phone, and dropped his voice.  "The only thing that you and I both know is that you're the one who tried to tank the Figaro commercial by slandering Wolfgang, sneaking around deleting their music, and paying off the douchebag drummer!"

Rosenberg froze where he stood, his eyes round and his lips pressed together so tightly they were beginning to turn white.

From behind him, Lorenzo said, "Antonio...?"

"No, I've had it!" Antonio went on.  "I should have told you to fuck off from the beginning, from the day you started talking about trying to bribe the Kia execs to refuse Stephanie's commercial, but I figured you were such a bumbling moron there was no way you'd actually be able to have an impact on any of it.  What kind of asshole tries to destroy someone who makes music he loves?  What kind of self-loathing... masochistic..." he broke off, his own words landing a little too heavily on his conscience.  Antonio hadn't stopped Rosenberg either.  They were both responsible.

Rosenberg let out the breath he had been holding in a long hiss.  "Of all the people to suddenly start raving about Mozart, Tony, I never would have expected-"

"My name's Antonio, you asshole!" he snapped.

"Mr. Salieri," Rosenberg said pointedly, edging toward the door, "I'm sure you know that I have a meeting with Joe later today..."

"Great!  Have Margie pencil me in for the next available slot, and I'll tell her who spent all their free time working to sabotage the Figaro commercial and who lost us the Giovanni deal!  Any chance you kept receipts for the money you sent to Ziggy, Accountant Rosenberg?"

Rosenberg's scrabbling fingers found the doorknob.  "You just turned against the wrong guy, Tony," he said ominously.  "Don't get too used to that new title of yours."  And with that, he let himself out.

A weight lifted when he was gone.  Antonio spun around, unable to reign in the smirk that was spreading across his face, only to be met with the sight of a very solemn Lorenzo.  He held out his phone to Antonio, a grim set to his jaw.

Antonio glanced at the contact information displayed on the screen above the active call time: Wolfgang Mozart.

Had Wolfgang just heard all of that?  Did he know that Rosenberg was the reason his career had been falling to pieces lately?

Worse, was he going to realize that Antonio had chosen not to stop him?

He took the phone slowly and held it up to his ear, his heart sinking again.  "Hello?"

"Antonio, thank god!"

His breath caught: it was Constance's voice, not Wolfgang's.  But why was she calling Lorenzo with Wolfgang's phone?  "Hey, what is it?"

"I've been calling your cell and your office trying to get you.  Antonio, it's Wolfgang.  Can you come home?"

"Now?  Constance, what's going on?  You're scaring me."

"No, I'm sorry.  He's just- we need you.  Wolfgang's dad died this morning."

Antonio closed his eyes, relieved at first that Wolfgang and Constance were alright, but his mood sinking again as he realized what this would mean for Wolfgang.  "I'll be there as soon as I can," he said quietly.

When he passed the phone back to Lorenzo, his friend grabbed his hand.  "Are you going to be okay with- a parents thing?" he asked.

Antonio shrugged.  "It doesn't matter.  I have to be there for him.  He needs me."

"I'll cover for you if anyone notices," Lorenzo said, releasing his hand.  "Tell Wolfgang I'll say a prayer for him."

 

 

 

 

The funeral was the following Saturday; despite Antonio's protests, Wolfgang insisted on buying the plane tickets for the three of them.

He had spent the rest of the week bundled in his coat and a chunky scarf, sitting listlessly on the bench in the garden with his back to the house.  Constance had given her bar shifts to her sisters and stashed a few of her things in the front master suite, unofficially moving in well before she had originally said she would.  She divided her time between the back yard and the kitchen with snacks and water that Wolfgang barely touched.  As for Antonio, he felt like a stranger again, hovering by his bedroom window and looking down at the two of them until he could hear his pulse throbbing in his ears.   This was it, he found himself thinking.  The loss of his father would be what made Wolfgang realize that it was time to settle down and get serious, to invest in his future and in Constance.  He had used a few vacation days to stay home, loathe to give Constance and Wolfgang enough space to decide they didn't need him but only rarely daring to join Wolfgang during his vigil in the garden.   They hadn't even been living together for a week.

On Friday morning before the funerla, Antonio was scrambling eggs for Wolfgang while Constance bustled around arranging their suitcases by the door, turning off lights, and emptying the trash one last time before they left for LA.  One thing he had learned from spending so much time with her these past few days was that Constance liked to stay busy.  Apparently her mother had taught her early on that, as she put it, "smart people don't get bored".  With four sisters in the house, he could imagine that there had been plenty of chores to go around whenever one of the kids complained that they had nothing to do.

Wolfgang, meanwhile, was the kind of person who could get more done in the rare moments when he was focused on a task than a normal person could get done in a week.  His recording equipment was set up in the middle bedroom upstairs; before his father's death he had managed to compose nearly a dozen tracks just in the time since Antonio had moved in.  For the first part of the week, Antonio had taken the F train from work straight to their new neighborhood each evening, and had always been able to hear strains of Wolfgang's music as he mounted the stoop, unlocking the door and being met with a song that no one had ever heard before.

Seeing Wolfgang sit so quietly at the table, knowing that all the music inside him was trapped or had fallen silent too, made him feel like a jailer. He kissed the top of his head as he put down his plate.  To his surprise, Wolfgang grabbed his wrist before he could pull away.

"Wolfgang?"

"I had a dream last night," he murmured.  His voice sounded so small.

Antonio dropped into the seat at his side, watching him collect his thoughts.

"I was alone at the hotel, at the penthouse," Wolfgang began.  "The elevator opened, and this guy stepped out.  I- I thought it was Dad, but when I looked at his face I couldn't see him." 

Antonio scooted his chair closer, winding his arm around Wolfgang's waist and pulling him against him.  "That sounds awful."

"He was just this dark figure, you know?" Wolfgang went on.  "But I could hear this song playing.  And I heard Dad's voice.  The guy's face was like a mask, but the voice coming out was definitely Dad's."  

"Could you tell what he was saying?"

Wolfgang leaned away, meeting Antonio's eye for the first time in days.  "He wants me to write a song for him.  He said it's the only way to keep him alive."

"A song?"

"I can- I can hear it, almost.  If I'm still enough, I can hear it."

For some reason, at the sound of Constance's step on the stairs Antonio released Wolfgang's waist.  "Antonio?" she called.  "Will you come up here for a second?"

He kissed Wolfgang's temple and obeyed, leaving him to finish his breakfast.  Constance was on the landing, a half-empty trash bag on the floor by her feet.  She held out a handful of crumpled papers to Antonio with a grave look in her eyes.  He paged through them: they were monthly bank statements.  Wolfgang's bank statements.  The beginning balance was outrageous, of course, but three weeks ago he had cut a check for more than five million dollars.  After that, there was less than ten thousand left in the account.  "Is this-?"

"He spent all his savings on this house," Constance hissed.  "I knew something was off with him, even before he got the news.  He was too squirrelly."

Antonio balled up the statements and dropped them into the trash bag.  "The Libertines just canceled their tour.  They haven't booked anything since all this bullshit broke out."  His stomach lurched at the mention of it, but he couldn't admit to Constance now that it was partially his own fault.  "He'll get revenue for the Kia commercials, though."

"Nope. He signed it all over to the band," said Constance.

"His album then."

She snatched the garbage bag up off the floor.  "I love that man, Antonio, but he's a fucking idiot sometimes."

"The album," Antonio said again.  "The single has tons of hits on soundcloud.  And, worst case scenario, he's got us."

Her expression softened, and she patted Antonio's chest with her free hand.  "I think he'd be dead by now if he didn't."

That afternoon, Antonio paid for the cab to JFK.  Despite the six hour flight, the plane was relatively small, which meant one of their seats ended up being across the aisle from the other two.  Antonio took it before Constance could protest, jamming his bag into an overhead compartment and reaching for Wolfgang's while Constance ushered him to the window seat.  The flight was peaceful and dull, free of turbulence but also free of good in-flight entertainment.  Wolfgang slept for the first few hours; once he woke up Antonio overheard him describing that same unsettling dream to Constance before flipping open one of his notebooks and scribbling furiously across a blank page.  

Antonio couldn't stop thinking about the bank statement.  Of course he'd known the townhouse have been expensive, but he never would have imagined that Wolfgang might have spent all his savings on it.  After all, why had Wolfgang Mozart, who until now had been staying in a penthouse suite, suddenly decided he needed an enormous home in Brooklyn?  He'd said it himself: he wanted to have enough room for Antonio and Constance, to entice them into moving in with him.  He'd done it for Antonio, who had been part of the reason that Wolfgang's career had suddenly blown up in the first place.  So Wolfgang had spent everything he had for Antonio, while Antonio had been too cowardly to even risk annoying Rosenberg for him.

When they were finally able to disembark at LAX, Antonio felt more like lying down on the tarmac and waiting for the next plane to crush him than following Constance and Wolfgang to the baggage claim.  Wolfgang found a bench and immediately busied himself with his notepad again, his hood and sunglasses rendering him just anonymous enough that none of the other passengers seemed to realize that the lead singer of the Divine Libertines was in their midst.

Antonio drifted over to the empty baggage carousel, watching it spin and listening halfheartedly to the conversations of the other passengers around him.  He was so engrossed in avoiding his own thoughts that he flinched at the low sound of Constance's voice when she asked, "Okay, what's going on with you, Antonioni?"

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye.  She had tried to dress a little more casually for the flight, but somehow she was just as radiant in a flannel shirt as she was in a shimmery gold dress.  What must the people around him think when they saw someone like her standing next to someone like him?  He cleared his throat nervously.  "I'm just-"

"Don't try to tell me you're just worried about Wolfgang," she interrupted.  "I know you better than that."

He clenched his jaw and went back to watching the empty baggage carousel.

"When was the last time you talked to Dr. Gassmann?"

"Uh, Wednesday, I think."

"And what would she tell you if you were here right now?"

"She isn't."

"Antonio," Constance said sternly, "I get it, we're both stressed and we're both worried about him.  But we're partners.  You know that, right?"

He nodded reluctantly.  Dr. Gassmann was constantly telling him to let other people carry his burdens with him.  But what happened when his burden was that he had wronged Wolfgang?  How could he expect Wolfgang or Constance to help him with something like that?

Constance laced her fingers through his, tugging gently on his arm.  "I love you. You can trust that," she said.

"But what if I did something awful?" he blurted, wrestling with the urge to pull his hand free.

"We're just people, Antonio. We all do awful things. I thought you cheated on me, remember? And I was angry for a while, but after that I just missed you. Except... then I got angry at you for not missing me, too."

He nodded again, trying not to smile at that image. She knew how much he had missed her for all those months.

"So?  Do you want to stop overthinking whatever you're overthinking and talk to me?"

Antonio released her hand.  "You'll be angry this time."

"Okay. You can be angry at someone and still love them."

"It's my fault," he admitted, his voice loud in his ears.

An electronic horn sounded, and the first of their flight's suitcases dropped onto the baggage carousel.  The people standing around them shifted expectantly, watching the single red suitcase begin to make its rounds.

"What's your fault?" Constance pressed.

Antonio gestured aimlessly.  "I know where that hashtag came from.  I know why there was so much trouble with the Figaro commercial.  And- and bribing Ziggy to fight with the rest of the band was- was my idea."

"What are you talking about?" Constance asked, studying him with an air of amused disbelief.  "You think you sabotaged the Divine Libertines yourself?  Antonio, you love that band more than you love me."

"Don't say that," he said quickly.  "I didn't know it would go so far.  I just... I thought that the more problems there were with the Figaro commercial, the longer it would take, and the longer it would be before Lorenzo moved to Philadelphia."

Constance shook her head.  "You expect me to believe that you were trying to ruin Wolfgang's career all day and then you came home and slept in a bed next to him all night?  That's not like you, Antonio.  You're one of the most dedicated people I know."

He scoffed.  "Dedicated?  Maybe.  But... what if I was more dedicated to my own career than to Wolfgang's?  I mean, I got a promotion out of it, didn't I?  I'm the head of marketing now, all because I convinced Kia not to scrap the project completely.  But if it wasn't for me being so- so  _dedicated_ to keeping Lorenzo from leaving me, the commercial never would have needed saving anyway!"

"Antonio?  What are you guys talking about?"

He spun around, his heart sinking.  Wolfgang was standing just behind them.  It was impossible to read his expression with his eyes hidden behind his sunglasses, but he was hugging his notebook to his chest and his brow was furrowed.

"He's trying to convince me that he's the reason you had trouble with the Figaro commercial.  He said he bribed your drummer or something."

"There's your bag," Antonio said quickly, breaking away from them and retrieving Wolfgang's suitcase from the carousel.  That was the only piece of luggage the group had checked.  Their return flight was Sunday morning, anyway, so they only needed something nice for the funeral, something to sleep in, and toiletries.  Knowing Wolfgang, this suitcase was probably full of the latter.

From the other side of the baggage claim, a voice squealed, "Constance!"

Antonio turned around in time to see someone charging toward his girlfriend and leaping into her open arms.  "Nannerl!" Constance replied.  She caught Wolfgang's sister in a hug and spun her around, both of them giggling and attracting the stares of the haggard passengers around them.  A distant smile even passed across Wolfgang's face, but when Antonio joined them with the checked bag it dropped away and his brow furrowed again.

Antonio felt like he was going to be sick.

He had never been to California before.  Everything he saw from the backseat of Nannerl's car looked like a scene from a movie.  Back in New York, they had left behind a gray, icy January; here in Los Angeles the evening sky was as broad and clear as summertime.  All three of them ended up shucking off their jackets before they arrived at the Mozart family estate, one of those sprawling houses set so far back from the road that it was invisible to passersby.  Nannerl punched a code into a keypad to pass through an enormous gate, her little hatchback strangely incongruous as it trundled up the wide drive toward the mansion.

Nannerl had swung through a drive-through just outside the airport, and the bags had sat between Antonio and Wolfgang for the whole drive, quickly filling the car with the smell of fast food.  She and Constance kept up a conversation while Wolfgang scribbled away on his notepad.  When Antonio dared to try to read over his shoulder, he only caught one word that was scrawled across the top: "Requiem."

The four of them had spread out their takeout dinner at a stately dining table that would certainly have been better suited to a banquet.  Small wonder that Wolfgang hadn't hesitated to drop five millions dollars on a house: this dining room alone was nearly the size of the entire main floor of their townhouse back in Brooklyn.  Antonio couldn't imagine the warm, bubbly child he had met that day at the boys' home growing up among these high ceilings and fragile knickknacks.  The house matched his impression of Wolfgang's dad far more precisely than it matched any aspect of Wolfgang or his sister.  He wondered what their mother had been like.  Maybe the Mozart estate had changed since her death.

When they were finished eating, Nannerl led them to a sunken den on the other side of the kitchen where a whole wall was taken up by a television screen the size of a billboard and an extensive collection of DVDs and video games.  Nannerl and Constance dropped onto an overstuffed couch, Constance kicking off her shoes.  Antonio perched anxiously on the edge of an ottoman, realizing after a moment that Wolfgang had slipped away from the group.  He held in a sigh, wondering what time it was back in New York and whether Dr. Gassmann would mind a needy phone call from her most pathetic patient on a Friday night.  He checked the time on his phone, but slid it back into his pocket anyway.  Dr. Gassmann had better things to do.  Nannerl noticed him looking at the time and misinterpreted, telling him in her bright little voice that there were a bunch of bedrooms up the stairs and to the left and he could set up in any of them if he was tired.  It was as good an excuse as any to get away.

The first room on the left was as impersonal as the rest of the house, everything decorated in a crisp white that contrasted with the dark wooden floors.  He dropped his duffel bag onto a chair in the corner and unpacked his gray suit.  The fabric was supposed to be wrinkle-resistant, but after having been folded into his carryon it probably needed a night hanging in the closet before the funeral tomorrow.

He drifted over to the window and looked out over the grounds.  The lot was as impressive as the house, dotted with ancient trees and lined by a massive wall.  At the base of the nearest tree he spotted a bobbing light in the darkness.  He could just make out the shape of Wolfgang, sitting with his back to the trunk and scribbling away in that notebook of his.  Antonio sighed and turned away from the window.  If anyone in their group was "dedicated", as Constance had said, it was Wolfgang and not Antonio.  Antonio was just a selfish coward.

He had trouble sleeping that night.  Not since he moved into the townhouse last weekend had Antonio gone a whole night without hearing that little knock on his door, without Wolfgang snuggling up against his side and whispering that it was too cold in his own room.  The few things Constance had moved in didn't include a bed, either; Antonio had gotten used to the slow sound of her breathing and the way she sighed every time she rolled over.  Neither of them joined him that night.  

Halfway through the night, Antonio couldn't take his thoughts anymore. He yanked his phone away from his charger and texted Frank. LA was hours behind the east coast: it would be way too early to bother Dr. Gassmann, but Frank was his brother.  Frank had to put up with him. 

He had just enough time to go to the bathroom and brush his teeth again when his phone lit up with a response.  Antonio counted backwards on his fingers again: three hours, which meant it was just after three o'clock in the morning in New York.  Frank's text was riddled with bizarre typos, leaving it essentially unreadable.

 _Are you okay?_  he texted back.   _Maybe you should get some sleep._

 _DONR TELL WOLDFNAF ALORISIA HATESNHIS DAD SHE WANTERNTO OPEN A BOTTLENOF WONE BUT SHE CANT DRIJK_ came the response.

Antonio wrinkled his nose.  Aloysia was celebrating the death of Wolfgang's dad by giving Frank an entire bottle of wine?   _Hope you're taking a cab home..._ _Be careful._

After a pause, Antonio received a photo reply: his brother Frank, still fully-dressed but extremely rumpled, stretched out on a bed with heavily-pregnant pop sensation Aloysia curled up at his side, using his shoulder as a pillow.  Antonio heaved a long sigh.  First Lorenzo, then Constance, and now Frank.  He closed the picture and scrolled down through his contacts, staring at Dr. Gassmann's name for a long time.  She had tried to convince him over and over to focus on supporting his friends and being happy for them, on knowing that by continuing to be the person they loved, there was nothing he could do to lessen how important he was to them, even if they met someone who took up more of their time than Antonio did.

Too bad that sounded like a bunch of bullshit.

Antonio went back to his conversation with Frank, trying not to stare at the picture of him and Aloysia for too long.  He knew Frank was expecting him to be as excited as he was, or at the very least amused that it was Frank's turn to send a picture taken from beneath a sleeping celebrity.  But Antonio couldn't find anything to say that sounded sincere.  Eventually, his brother texted him again, whatever he was trying to communicate devolving into random letters by the end of his sentence.   _SHE SAID EBEN IF OIR SKINS CAN NVEBR MEET IV3 BEEN ON HER MIND SHE KNOWSBWE BELING_

 _Happy for you,_ Antonio finally replied.   _Drink some water and get some sleep._

He flopped backwards across the bed, staring at that same place on the ceiling he'd been staring at for half the night.  Well, for a few days he'd had everything, at least: a little family in Wolfgang and Constance, his brother, his best friend, even a promotion at work.  If only he hadn't let himself get so complacent.

 

 

 

 

The funeral was strange and stilted.  Wolfgang sat the whole time with his hands folded in his lap, head bowed, his lips moving slightly as though he were praying.  Antonio was sure that he was still composing the song for his father that he had heard in his eerie dream.  Constance was between them, her own silence a little more focused.  Wolfgang was in one of his usual outfits, a couple of layers of black shirts, black jeans so worn out that they had managed to get shiny at the knees, and his heavy boots; Constance, meanwhile, had passed over all of her short dresses and gone instead with a pinstriped black blouse and a pair of black leather pants that might as well have been leggings.  Antonio wondered if he looked like an asshole in his gray suit and black dress shirt.

Nannerl got up to speak during the ceremony, putting a hand on the casket as she spoke tearfully about following the narrow path of her father's footsteps without him to guide her, about learning to walk as a child knowing he would be there to catch her when she fell.  Who would catch her now that he had slipped away?  Antonio couldn't help sneaking a glance at Wolfgang, but he was still staring at the back of the pew in front of them, his fingers moving gently across his knee now as though he were sounding out the melody in his head on an imaginary keyboard.  He didn't seem to be listening to his sister at all.

When it was time for the family to file out after the casket, Constance took Wolfgang by the elbow and guided him to the door, leaving Antonio to trail awkwardly behind them.  Nannerl fell into step at his side, the lights of the chapel reflecting softly off the beadwork that decorated her dress.  It didn't seem appropriate to touch her arm, even if it was meant to be comforting, but Antonio was at least grateful to look a little less foolish within the group.

That evening, the old Mozart estate was filled with well-dressed well-wishers and, fortunately, a well-stocked open bar.  Nannerl was composed again, still in her ornate black dress with her long brown curls swept up at the back of her head.  She seemed to have something to say to each of the guests as they milled around the mansion, ogling the furnishings and whispering with a tone that aped reverence.  Wolfgang had managed to disappear again.  Constance stuck close to Nannerl at first, but seemed to bore quickly and excused herself upstairs.  Antonio wondered if she was going to call one of her sisters.  He wondered if Frank was still with Aloysia.  He hadn't heard from his brother all day.  In fact, even Constance and Wolfgang had barely spoken to him.

Antonio swung by the bar again, picking up yet another glass of wine and nodding politely to the bartender.  An old-fashioned couch was situated in one corner of the room; Antonio took a seat and glowered at the assembled rich people.  He felt like there were dark shades of silk everywhere he looked, along with glimmering jewelry on every outstretched wrist and heirloom brooches on every collar.  How had Wolfgang been able to stand growing up around people like this?  His own childhood had been scrappy boys in oversized, stained t-shirts and faded jeans.  He had never felt more distant from Wolfgang than he did at that moment.

Nannerl had taken another glass of white wine herself and was passing by where he sat when an older gentleman stopped her.  "Oh, Miss Mozart!" he said, the skin on his neck wobbling precariously with every word. "You have my greatest sympathies for everything!  First your poor brother, and now this devastating blow!  Your father was much too young!"

"My brother?  My brother's fine," Nannerl said, glancing in Antonio's direction.  "He's around here somewhere."

"Oh, no, honey, I meant that business in New York!  His whole career blew up, didn't it?  I mean, after everything your dad did for him, he probably died of shame."

"An embolism, actually," said Nannerl. Her voice was suddenly icy.  "And didn't you hear?  My brother just bought a five-bedroom townhouse in Brooklyn, plus he's working on another album."

"Even so-"

"If you'd like to share your fascinating opinions on his successes with him," she went on, raising her voice, "I'd be delighted to introduce you- what's your name again?  There are so many people here who weren't invited, it's hard to keep them all straight!"

The man huffed, made a feeble comment about how lovely the reception had been, and buried himself into the crowd.

Nannerl caught Antonio's eye and winced.  "I've been getting a lot of that," she admitted.

He shrugged and took a long gulp of his wine.

"I don't know what's gotten into these bastards," Nannerl sighed.  She gestured to the empty spot at his side.  "Do you mind?"

Antonio shrugged again, but he scooted over slightly to give her space.

"So," she said as she plopped to a seat, "Antonio Salieri.  We haven't had much of a chance to get to know each other, but I can't help noticing that you seem more upset about my dad dying than Wolfgang is."

Antonio finished off his glass and cleared his throat.  "I- uh, no, not really," he said, his voice louder than he expected.  How many glasses of wine had that been?  He really needed to be more careful.

"Well, I could do with a change of subject.  It's been kind of a shit day for me.  What is it?  Wolfgang and Constance are treating you alright, aren't they?"

"They- they're amazing," Antonio said.  He realized he was listing slightly closer to Nannerl than necessary.  "Unfortunately... me."

"'Unfortunately you'?  That's not what I hear."

Antonio tried to shake his head and nearly lost his balance.

"They did both tell me you're kind of..." she began, wry and sympathetic at the same time, "well, let's just say you come up with a new reason they're going to dump you every weekend."

"Sounds like a good reason to dump me," Antonio muttered.  He started to take another sip of wine but remembered his glass was empty only after it was at his lips.  

With a grin, Nannerl pried it out of his hand and then passed him her own glass of white.  "Alright, what is it this time?  Distract me."

"Ziggy," Antonio said, unsure exactly how loud his voice was in the packed room.  "It was my idea."

"Wolfgang's drummer was your idea?  Or do you mean the comic strip?"

"No, no, I told Rosenberg he should  _bribe_ him!  He said start fights in the band, I said you'd have to bribe him, and he did it!  And they canceled their tour!  Plus the hashtag."

"How damning," she said dryly.

"It's serious!  I told them last night and now they won't speak to me.  I got a promotion.  I thought I was so slick, keeping Lorenzo in town, but all I did was ruin my boyfriend's life!  You'd think I won, right?  But then I still lose.  They're- they're assassinating Wolfgang out there!"

"Okay," Nannerl said, taking her wine glass back and setting it on the floor.  "I think it's time to get you out of here before you cause a scene.  How do you feel about stairs?"

Antonio couldn't tell if he looked like Hollywood elite or a drunken slob as he and Nannerl crossed the room and made their way up the grand staircase to the second floor.  Instead of guiding him to the empty room where he had spent the previous night, however, she knocked on a door closer to the end of the hall.  

It was Constance who opened it.  "Oh for fuck's sake," she said when she saw Antonio leaning heavily on little Nannerl, "as if I don't already have my hands full with my other boyfriend!"

"He thinks he destroyed Wolfgang's career," Nannerl said.

"Still?"

Nannerl slipped out from under Antonio's arm, effectively passing him over to Constance.  "I've got my phone jammed into my bra, just text if you need anything."

"Besides a vacation?  I'll let you know."

Once Antonio was inside, he realized that this must be Wolfgang's old bedroom.  A few framed posters were displayed neatly along one wall, boasting concert tours he'd done as a kid.  A desk was shoved in a corner next to a bookcase filled with stacks of loose sheet music and old notebooks.  He thought of the piles of laundry that had dotted Wolfgang's penthouse suite and wondered whether this room had been kept this neat when he actually lived here, or if his father had had it straightened up once he moved out on his own.  The most obvious clue as to the room's previous owner was the wooden headboard of the bed, into which a child's hand had carved an endless field of stars of every shape and size.

Wolfgang himself was lying on the bed, his ever-present notebook draped over his face and his arms stretched out to either side.  

"Wolfi!  Sit up," Constance ordered as she helped Antonio over to the bed.

He obeyed slowly, blinking at the brightness of the room as though he had been lying with his book over his face for quite some time.

"Have you heard this stuff about Antonio working with that Rosenberg guy?"

"Yeah. It's stupid," Wolfgang said quietly.  He climbed off the bed and moved to the desk, opening his notebook and shuffling through the drawers until he found a pen.

Antonio leaned back against the vandalized headboard.  It didn't stop the room from spinning.  "But it's true," he insisted.  "I was the one who said-"

"And it's stupid, okay?" interrupted Wolfgang, his voice rising just as Nannerl's had at the reception.  "Antonio, my dad's dead.  My dad had a fucking embolism just like my mom, and now he's dead.  And you know what else?  Turns out he's been depressed. It was bad after Mom died, but then since he saw that fucking Joey Lange movie he's been drinking, gambling, all that rich guy bullshit more than ever.  He has- he has debts!  Nannerl's his executor. She said there are new creditors calling every day, more than his estate is worth even after she sells the house!  We're fucked, we're completely fucked, and you're stomping around complaining about a fucking hashtag!"

"Wolfgang-" Constance started to say, but he sprang to his feet and stormed into the bathroom, slamming the door for good measure.

Antonio slunk lower onto the bed, covering his face in his hands.  He had never heard Wolfgang raise his voice before.  It wasn't like him, it wasn't the glittery, giggly rock star he knew.  And Antonio had driven him to this, had made him blow up like that on the day of his father's funeral.  "I'm too drunk for this," he whispered.  He suddenly felt too weak to breathe. "I can't- I'm sorry. Constance, tell him I'm sorry?"

The bed dipped as she joined him.  "Just let him be upset," she murmured as she pulled his head into her lap, carding her fingers through his hair.

"I- I'm such-"

"Shut up, Antonioni, don't do all that."  She pulled one of his hands away from his face and intertwined their fingers, the other hand still at his head.  "He's just scared."

Antonio let out a long sigh, leaning into her touch.  Before Constance and Wolfgang, he couldn't remember the last time anyone had just held him the way they so often did. He hadn't been sure about growing out his hair until Constance picked up the habit of playing with it whenever she was letting her mind wander.  He shot an unhappy glance at the closed bathroom door.  Tonight, he could be sure they were thinking of the same thing.

"Have you ever been with someone when they lost a family member?" Constance asked at length.

"Nancy Drew."

Her hand froze halfway through his hair. "What?"

"Lorenzo's goldfish."

She chuckled and pressed a kiss to his cheek.  "Well, all three of us know what it's like to lose a parent.  It hits everyone differently, though.  And Wolfi's dad was- well, it was complicated."

Antonio hummed in agreement.  Constance's father had had a heart attack when she was in high school.  Antonio had lost his home when he'd lost his parents; at the death of her father, Constance had nearly lost the freedom to leave home. "Have you talked to Aloysia?" he asked suddenly.

"Not today, why?"

"Apparently she got Frank drunk last night."

"Really?  I'd like to see drunk Frank."

"Get a few drinks in him and he texts just like Wolfgang.  Less emoticons, though."

She laughed again, then squeezed his hand and dropped it, pushing him gently out of her lap.  "I think you should go talk to Wolfgang," she whispered, "or he'll have to spend the night in the bathtub.  You know he's in there waiting, right?"

Antonio groaned, hoisting himself off the bed anyway.  He was still unsteady on his feet, but at least his voice seemed a normal volume in his ears now.  He knocked on the bathroom door, calling, "Wolfgang?  I'm sorry.  I shouldn't have detracted from your-"

The door flung open before he even finished the sentence, and Wolfgang threw his arms around him, burying his face in his chest.  Antonio returned the hug once he collected himself, alarmed to find that Wolfgang was crying.  He just held him, unsure what else to say.  Constance joined them after a moment.  She kissed Wolfgang's temple and Antonio's jaw before she put her arms around them both.  Antonio closed his eyes and took a deep breath, working through the fog of wine to etch this moment into his memory.  Wolfgang's cologne, the warmth of his breath and his damp cheeks as they permeated the front of his shirt, the pressure of his arms wrapped around Antonio's waist, the faint smell of hairspray--the tickle of Constance's hair brushing his nose, her flowery perfume, her own breath ghosting over his throat.  The three of them, together--maybe not whole, but together.  Despite the setting it was another moment for the good memory bank.

After a while, Wolfgang took a long, ragged breath.  "Will you both stay here tonight?" he asked, his voice muffled in Antonio's shirt.

Constance caught Antonio's eye and lifted a knowing brow.  "We're with you till the bitter end, Wolfgang Mozart," she said.  "Anyway, how else would you get up in time for our flight home in the morning?"

That earned a chuckle at least, the closest thing to a laugh Antonio had heard from Wolfgang in days.

It might have been the alcohol, but the moment his head was on the pillow and his arm was around Wolfgang's waist, Antonio was out.  The last thoughts he remembered before he fell asleep were that he was lucky Wolfgang was so clingy, that Constance was probably an angel in disguise, and that he really needed to set up an appointment with his therapist as soon as he was back in the city.


	19. Chapter 19

Over the next few weeks, the three of them fell into a comfortable routine.  Antonio woke up first each morning, extracting himself from their arms and following Catstance downstairs to the kitchen, where he would begin breakfast.  He'd always enjoyed cooking for himself, but there was something especially satisfying about putting together a coherent meal and having it ready when Wolfgang and Constance drifted downstairs with sleepy expressions and tousled hair.  Constance would usually be awake enough to make a Wall Street joke by the time she had filled up her plate; Wolfgang tended to throw his arms around Antonio's waist as soon as he was in the kitchen, regardless of whether Antonio was holding a frying pan, a dish cloth, or, on one occasion, a paring knife.

Sometimes they were up early enough for Antonio to take a seat at the table, watching them eat and trying not to look too smug.  Wolfgang usually wanted to retell some elaborate dream he had had the night before, while Constance filled any silences by asking Antonio what he would be doing that day at the office or reciting her shift schedule at the karaoke bar.  Other days, he only had time to kiss each of them on top of the head before grabbing his coat and his briefcase and hurrying out into the cold.

The pace of his new position was the complete opposite of his life as a marketing manager.  Gone were the days when Antonio could reread old text conversations with Constance or argue anonymously with detractors of the Divine Libertines online.  His inbox was an endless parade of performance reviews, project audits, and, unfortunately, new hire applications to fill the post Lorenzo was vacating.  He was in and out of so many meetings that he started to wish he had a Jean-Paul or a Margie to manage his schedule--not that he could handle having another direct report.  On a few occasions, he had been asked to work from the Philadelphia office, boarding the train before the sun was up and smiling at text messages from Constance complaining that she and Wolfgang had been reduced to eating microwaved oatmeal without him.  Work was busy those days too, but he always got to have lunch at Stephanie's fancy new place, a trendy two-bedroom condo in a converted factory, all exposed brick, glossy hardwood, and polished steel.  The first time he had visited, Lorenzo had been lounging around in pajamas, eager to complain about Joe refusing his transfer; the second time, he said he had begun to feel guilty about living off of his girlfriend and was applying to part-time jobs in the neighborhood just to get out of the house.

The third time, Antonio had to stay in Philadelphia through the end of the week to oversee the launch of General Mills's new Totinos ad, their first project with Imperial.  He chose to stay in Stephanie's guest room rather than a hotel.  Though months had gone by since she had left New York, it was just like those takeout weekends they had spent on Lorenzo's couch in Queens.  Only Antonio was different.  Stephanie and Lorenzo's latest find was a youtube channel full of British panel shows; the three of up were up past midnight eating Thai food and laughing together.  Antonio had missed this, he really had, yet his thoughts were always with Constance and Wolfgang back in the townhouse.  Constance texted him incessantly, using snapchat to send him short videos of her lying on his bed with Catstance curled up by her shoulder and the distant sounds of Wolfgang composing upstairs.  On the last night he replied with a photo of Lorenzo, who had fallen asleep with his head on Antonio's shoulder.  That earned a selfie of Constance pretending to be scandalized and a text message that simply said,  _Damn that Food Cart Lorenzo!_  Antonio sent another picture from further away, revealing that Stephanie's head was in Lorenzo's lap.

When he arrived home the next afternoon, he felt like he had been away for years.  Constance was already heading out for her shift at the karaoke bar, Wolfgang's new "intern" Frannie Süssmayr at her side.  Frannie was an exchange student who was boarding with the neighbors and attending the high school a few blocks away.  She had recognized Antonio one afternoon from Wolfgang's infamous Entertainment Weekly interview and had been overjoyed to learn that her host family lived on the same street as the lead singer of the Divine Libertines--"Herr Volfgong," as she called him.  Antonio hadn't been able to resist inviting her in, where the sight of Wolfgang in pajama pants and an old Divine Libertines t-shirt eating Nilla wafers straight out of the box nearly sent her into a swoon.  The girl's reaction to Wolfgang had been adorable, but it was Wolfgang's reaction to seeing an adoring fan again after everything he'd been going through that made Antonio's heart skip a beat.  Despite the pajama pants and cookie crumbs, he was immediately that prancing frontman who had always made Antonio too nervous to sit in the front row at Divine Libertines concerts.  It was so adorable that Antonio had had to busy himself with reorganizing the coat closet to resist the urge to kiss him right there in front of the kid.

It had turned out that Frannie was musically-inclined as well, so Wolfgang had "hired" her to help him with his new album in exchange for guitar lessons.  Antonio had been relieved. He hadn't seen Wolfgang leave the house since they'd returned from LA, so it could only do him good to have someone around besides Antonio and Constance.  The fact that that someone was a rare Divine Libertines fan who hadn't been affected by the #toomanynotes scandal made it even better.  Constance was pleased too, and had immediately adopted Frannie as a little sister.

When she spotted him at the other end of the street, Frannie punched Constance's arm and cried, "Ah, so you see, here he is!" in her stilted accent, a huge smile spreading across her face.  She waved to Antonio, calling, "They have been waiting for you!" before she scampered up the steps to her host family's door.

Antonio nearly tripped over a tree root when he locked eyes with Constance for the first time in three days.  She was bundled in a long coat and a gold scarf, her cheeks rosy in the winter air, her long curls cascading over her shoulders.  She was practically glowing.  They had been texting half an hour ago while he was on the train, but somehow the sight of her made Antonio feel shy again, like she was still that confident bartender he had met almost a year ago and he was still the nervous marketing manager who'd never had a shot of tequila.  He tried to push the feeling away.  Constance always called this "prude-ing up" and accused him of being rusty.  Dr. Gassmann said it stemmed from a lack of emotional permanence.  

Whatever it was, Constance didn't give it a chance to take hold: she grabbed the cords hanging from the earflaps of his fuzzy woolen hat and pulled him into a kiss.  "You're never allowed to leave again," she said after she broke away.  "Just so you know.  We can't function without you."

Antonio could feel his cheeks turning hot despite the chilly afternoon.  "You and Wolfgang were a couple by yourselves last fall and you were fine then," he muttered, shoving his hands into his coat pockets.

"So?  I used a flip phone when I was in high school and I thought that was fine.  Doesn't mean I could go a week without my smartphone now."  She tugged at his earflaps again.  "If you don't hug me right now I'll take the next train to Philadelphia and hook up with Food Cart Lorenzo."

Antonio couldn't help but grin at that.  He wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her off the sidewalk, earning a playful shriek.  He buried his face in her scratchy gold scarf and took a deep breath.  It had been a long three days.

When her feet were on the ground again Constance kissed his cheek and said, "I have to go to work.  Can I crawl in with you when I get home tonight?"

"If you don't, I'll go back to Philadelphia and hook up with Food Cart Lorenzo," Antonio answered dryly.

Constance yanked his hat down over his eyes.  "You're a menace!  See if you can get Wolfgang to change into a different set of pajamas or something, will you?  Make sure he eats something besides chips.  I'll see you tonight."  She had taken a few steps away, giving Antonio enough time to straighten his hat, before she seemed to remember herself and came back long enough to say, "I love you, you know that, right?  It really isn't home without you."

He just grabbed her hand and squeezed it, his throat suddenly tight.  

Antonio stayed where he was and watched Constance hurry away until she turned the corner, passing out of his line of sight.  Someday his good memory bank was going to get too full.

Wolfgang was upstairs in the bedroom he used as a studio, the fingers of one hand dancing nervously over his keyboard while he tapped a pencil with the other.  Instruments in cases and on stands lined the walls, including Antonio's own guitar which Wolfgang had been using in Frannie's lessons.  The cloudy winter sky above the glass ceiling lit the room with a diluted, muddled light that managed to make Wolfgang look even more haggard than he already was.  Antonio glanced at his messy sheet music: he was still working on the song he had started composing for his father at the funeral.  His margins were littered with hundreds of tiny overlapping stars, a nervous tic of Wolfgang's that indicated he'd been staring at this page for a long, long time.  He looked up when he heard Antonio at the door, his easy smile cracking across his face like he was still that preteen who had sung at the Padova boys' home in the late 90's, like nothing had hurt him or his career since.  "Fidanzato!" he said, scooting over and patting the empty space at the piano bench.  "You're home!"

Antonio smiled, sliding onto the narrow bench at his side, their thighs pressing together as Wolfgang kissed him in greeting.  "How's the song coming?" he asked.

Wolfgang put down his pencil.  "When Frannie's here, I try to dictate it and she can usually get it down for me.  But when I try to write it myself... I don't know.  The music's in my head!  I have everything I need here on the table... the notes, the outlines..."

"But it doesn't sound the same when you write it?"

"It's..." Wolfgang struck a minor chord on the keyboard.  "But I can hear the chorus coming in.  Once it's all together, the music..." he changed to another, grander minor chord.  "It- it transcends the skies... and the sunlight..."

Antonio pressed a kiss to his temple, trying to imagine what the requiem sounded like in Wolfgang's mind, to hear something so clearly but be unable to share it.  "When was the last time you took a break?"

"Constance brought up some takeout," he said, gesturing toward an empty pizza box that was balanced on top of the trash can.

"How long ago was that?  Are you hungry?  Tired?  It's a little early to go to bed, but if you-"

Wolfgang grinned again, dropping a hand to Antonio's knee.  "Home ten minutes, and he's already trying to get me into bed!" he teased.  He leaned in as though he was going to kiss Antonio's cheek, but turned his head at the last moment and caught his earlobe between his lips.  

Antonio tilted his head back, winding his own arm around Wolfgang's waist and pulling him nearer.  It had been a long time since Wolfgang had done anything but kiss or hug either of them.  In fact, he was pretty sure that the last time had been before his father's death.  He had missed this, had missed the smell of stale cologne and the scrape of his rough jaw, the slow pace he always set, the patterns he traced on Antonio's skin with his tongue, with his fingers.

When he trailed his hand up the inside of his thigh, Antonio's breath hitched.  "Wolfgang-! You're going to knock me off the bench!"

"Oh?" he asked innocently.  "Here, this will make more room."  And he slid right onto the floor, clambering around under the keyboard until he was kneeling between Antonio's feet.

"Wolfgang-?"

He ran both hands up the insides of his thighs this time, looking up at him through his lashes as he toyed with his fly.  "Too much?"

Antonio just shook his head.  He gripped the sides of the bench as Wolfgang slowly unzipped his trousers.

"Already?" Wolfgang chuckled, tracing the shape of Antonio's erection through his underwear.  "You know, Antonio, at this rate I'm never going to make it to the end of my requiem."

 

 

 

 

Antonio was so unaccustomed to sleeping in Wolfgang's bed that when his phone started vibrating he spent several long minutes scrambling around in the dark trying to figure out where he was and where he had left it.  Since he was the only one with a job that required he be up early in the morning, he usually turned in around ten, leaving Constance and Wolfgang to join him at whatever ungodly hour they actually needed sleep.  All three of them had their chargers in Antonio's room, letting them line their phones up neatly along the top of his bookshelf while they slept.  Wolfgang's room was a wreck, just a mattress and box spring piled on the floor and stacks of laundry everywhere else--despite the fact that the washer and dryer were literally one room over.  There was no logical place to look for his phone, especially since he wasn't sure which pocket it had been in when he and Wolfgang had crashed through the door together earlier that evening, pulling off each others' clothes and flinging them carelessly onto the floor.

His phone had stopped ringing by the time he found it beneath Wolfgang's pajama pants over by the door.  His stomach dropped: there were two missed called from Constance.  He checked the time--just after two in the morning--and swiped to call her back, clearing his throat and stepping out into the hall.  If she was able to call him, that meant that she was okay, right?  Something might have happened at the bar, or she might have had an issue on the subway, but Constance herself had to be okay.  He closed his eyes, pressing his forehead against the cool wall as the phone rang once, then again.  By the fourth ring he had convinced himself that he was going to hear the husky voice of a police officer who had found the phone on Constance's mangled body in an alley in midtown and had been dialing her recent contacts to try to help identify her.  He could feel his legs grow weaker with every hollow ring.

When Constance finally answered, Antonio slumped to the floor in pure relief.  Her voice was lower than usual, but she just sounded tired, not upset.  He steadied himself with a long, slow inhale.  He was such an idiot sometimes.  "You're okay?" he breathed.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart, I know you have to work in the morning.  Allie's gone into labor and I'm stuck in the waiting room.  I just thought-"

"Allie?  She's-?  Okay, we'll be there," Antonio interrupted.  "Is Frank with her?"

"Yeah.  I stayed with them for a while but it's..." to his surprise, her voice broke.  "She's in a lot of pain, Antonio.  It freaked me out."

"We'll be there," Antonio said again.  "We're coming."

Wolfgang was a little less enthusiastic about getting dressed in the middle of the night, finally pulling on a rumpled shirt and a tattered pair of jeans from one of his laundry piles.  There was an unsettling moment by the door while Antonio was helping Wolfgang into his coat when he suddenly felt like a dad forcing his reticent kid to bundle up before school.  It was probably just the idea of pop sensation Aloysia becoming a mom messing with his head.  He bit his lip as he locked the front door behind them: what would this mean for Frank?  He hoped the two of them had at least talked about it.

The night air was so cold it seemed to pull the breath from Antonio's lungs while he walked, biting at his nose and cheeks.  He tugged his fuzzy hat lower over his ears and took Wolfgang's hand, keeping an eye out for ice as the two of them hurried up to 7th Avenue.  He tried phoning for a cab, but the dispatcher said it would be at least a half-hour wait.  It wasn't worth it, not when Constance needed them.  He heaved a sigh that hung in the air as a cloud and fished his MetroCard out of his pocket.

It was definitely one of the strangest subway rides of Antonio's life.  There were only a few other people in the train with them, everyone staring lifelessly at the floor at first.  Eventually, some of them realized that the disheveled, poorly-dressed passenger who had elected to curl up in the seat and lay his head in his companion's lap was the lead singer of the Divine Libertines.  Antonio winced when he noticed phones turning in Wolfgang's direction.  This definitely wasn't going to help with his image: it was nearly three o'clock in the morning, he was half-asleep, and he had literally chosen his outfit in the dark.  With his rumpled clothes, his heavy, drowsy breathing, and the orange glow from the plastic subway seats washing him out, Wolfgang probably looked like a suffering drug addict right now.  Antonio smoothed a rogue lock of hair behind his ear and bent down to kiss his temple.  At least if these pictures got out, people would know Wolfgang Mozart wasn't alone.

When they finally arrived in midtown, Antonio started to take the subway steps two at a time but had to slow down when Wolfgang complained that he was too out-of-shape to run.  They climbed the stairs slowly, a little more slowly than was probably necessary, but Wolfgang seemed to need to illustrate just how sleepy he was at every opportunity.  He gripped Antonio's arm when they finally reached the top of the stairs, clenching a hand over his chest as he muttered, "Whoa, I'm out of breath.  I need to start exercising again.  How much is a treadmill usually?"

"I'll get you a treadmill," Antonio said impatiently, placing a hand between Wolfgang's shoulders and guiding him to the elevator.  Subway elevators were dingy and usually smelled like piss, but anything was preferable to watching Wolfgang whine that he was too tired to walk up the last flight of stairs to the street.

When they arrived at the hospital waiting room, Constance practically charged at them, throwing an arm around each of them and apologizing desperately for waking them when Antonio had work in the morning.  He had never seen her like this: her hair was unkempt, there was a run in her tights, and dark circles were forming beneath her eyes.  Antonio kissed her forehead, assuring her that it didn't matter, that he had twice as many vacation days to burn now thanks to his new position.  Wolfgang released Antonio and wrapped both arms around Constance, pressing his forehead to hers, humming and swaying gently until she started to relax.  Antonio noticed a coffee machine in the corner and started a fresh pot, realizing after a moment that the song Wolfgang was humming was his unfinished requiem.  He closed his eyes without turning around: somehow he had made the melancholy tune sound like a lullaby.  Was that how it sounded in his head?

Wolfgang guided Constance to a couch near the television and Antonio brought over the coffee: black for Constance and Wolfgang; his own with cream and sugar.  He took his place beside her on the couch, smiling when she put her cup down on the floor and laid her head on his shoulder.  "It just seems so weird," she muttered.  "Allie, changing diapers."

"You told me you wanted a house full of kids once," Antonio pointed out.

Constance took a deep breath, but didn't say anything else.  After a while, the expectant pause lapsed into a comfortable silence.

It seemed like years before the glow of dawn finally touched the window at the far side of the waiting room.  Despite having drunk both his own coffee and Constance's, Wolfgang eventually managed to fall asleep again with his head in her lap.  Antonio dozed off a few times as well, though he was unable to get any real rest when he was surrounded by the hushed conversations of passing nurses and the occasional squeak of shoes against the glossy, sterile floors.  Wolfgang's raspy breathing wasn't helping, either.  Constance didn't seem to sleep at all; every time Antonio tilted his head to check on her she was staring straight ahead, her lip caught between her teeth and a sickly expression on her face.  She looked up only once: after he caught her hand in his and pressed his forehead to her cheek, murmuring, "She'll be okay, you know," Constance squeezed his hand and shot him a wry smile without answering.

About a half-hour after Antonio excused himself to call Joe and let him know that he'd be out that day, Frank finally appeared in the door of the waiting room.  He looked even more haggard than poor Wolfgang, his eyes red with tears and exhaustion, but there was a glowing smile on his face when he said, "Do you guys want to come meet Frida?"

Wolfgang lifted his head, his hair mussed to one side from lying against Constance's thigh, and grumbled, "Frida?  Really?"

But Constance was already on her feet, sweeping past her boyfriends and Frank at a pace that was almost a run.  Frank pulled Antonio into a hug, letting out a long sigh.  "Antonio," he said, his voice muffled, "that was the craziest thing I've ever seen.  People who have babies are fucking warriors."

Antonio chuckled, releasing Frank as he turned back to check on Wolfgang.  He had clambered off the couch and was tousling his hair into place with one hand, massaging his chest with the other and frowning in thought.

"Wolfgang?  You okay?"

He shrugged. "You know when you exercise really hard and you get kind of winded, like it's hard to catch your breath?  How long does that feeling usually last?"

"A few minutes, maybe... is this still from the stairs in the subway last night?  Wolfgang, when was the last time you actually left the house?"

"Don't nag me," Wolfgang said.  "Don't you want to be Frito's cool uncle?  Cool uncles don't nag."

"Are you two coming to see this baby, or do you want to stand here and bicker?"

Wolfgang grabbed Antonio's hand.  "Let's gonna go bicker with the kid," he said gleefully.

Constance shushed them as soon as they entered the hospital room: Aloysia was asleep, and looked more like a normal, haggard person than she ever had before.  Not far from her bed was a sterile-looking hospital crib that resembled a cage, with a wrinkled, pink, squash-faced little baby inside.  Constance was standing frozen before the crib, staring at it with a bizarre expression that looked like dread.  Antonio was more interested in the uncanny sight of pop sensation Aloysia with bags under her eyes and sweat-soaked, unkempt hair stuck to her face than in the newborn.

Wolfgang shuffled right past both of them, leaning over the crib and cooing, "Baby Aloysia!" at the weird little blob.  One of Constance's hands lifted as though she wanted to pull him away, but something stopped her.

"Constance?" Antonio whispered, edging over to her.  "What's going on?"

She leaned against him and let out a long sigh.  "I just don't think we're ready."

"Ready for what?" pressed Antonio, but he never found out: at that moment, the door to the bathroom opened and Cecilia Weber stepped out.

Antonio's stomach dropped and he reflexively slung an arm around Constance's waist, though he wasn't sure whether he was trying to protect her from her own mother or use her as a human shield.

Mrs. Weber's mouth pinched into a thin line as she looked over the newcomers to the room.  "Constance," she said, her voice stilted.  Her gaze flicked over Antonio, then back to Wolfgang, and a muscle in her jaw started to jump.  She cleared her throat, looking up at the ceiling for a moment before she turned back to Antonio.  "You're Frank's little brother?"

"Uh- y-yes," he stammered.  "Antonio.  We- we've met before."

"I know," she snapped, but when Constance said, "Mom!" she steadied herself again.

Wolfgang looked up from the baby, chirping, "Good morning, Cecilia!  How does it feel to be a grandma?"

Antonio tightened his grip on Constance's waist, half-expecting he was going to have to throw her over his shoulder and make a run for it when Mrs. Weber murdered their boyfriend right there in the hospital.

To his surprise, the tension melted out of her shoulders at the question.  "At my age!" she crowed, suddenly good-natured. "And she named her after my late husband, did you realize?  Little Frida!  I only wish my Allie had found a decent man like Frank years ago and saved herself all this negative press!"

When Constance tugged at Antonio's arm, he realized just how tight his grip on her had become.  He had never seen Mrs. Weber smile before; somehow it was even eerier than watching her throw things around in his office.  And she liked Frank?  The woman who had called Antonio godless and taken out a literal restraining order on Wolfgang had just said Frank was decent!

"Come on, Mrs. Weber," Frank said as he made his way over to Aloysia's side, "if it wasn't for Joey Lange, Frida wouldn't be here.  Everything happens for a reason."

Their conversation had awakened Aloysia, who whispered something to Frank and gestured toward the crib.  He obligingly scooped little Frida out and transferred the baby into Aloysia's outstretched arms.  

Mrs. Weber let out a sigh at the sight of it, but quickly turned a hard stare on Constance.  "Don't you get any ideas!  Living alone with two men!  I ask myself every day why you couldn't have turned out like Sophie."

"Mom!"

"Because we need her!" Wolfgang cried.  He was still leaning heavily on the crib, looking more sleep-deprived than poor Aloysia.  "Come on, Cecilia!  I know you love your daughter, but do you realize how great she is?  She's like an angel."

Antonio felt Constance's shoulders stiffen and she grumbled, "Oh, shut up, Wolfi!"

He grinned at her, then caught Antonio's eye before saying, "Look, I've pulled a lot of shit in my life, Cecilia.  I've made some dumb calls.  But these two... they're the best thing that's ever happened to me.  I thought it was the band, the Divine Libertines getting off the ground and getting such a big following, a second chance at a career, but... that's gone now, and I don't even care.  Nothing matters but- but my family."

Cecilia glanced over at the hospital bed, where Aloysia was smoothing her baby's black hair and Frank was looking on, that expression of exhausted awe still illuminating his eyes.  Couldn't she see the same warmth in Wolfgang when he looked at Constance, or in the way Antonio was still holding her, letting her lean on him in the face of everything she had been through in the last few hours?  Antonio had lost his family when he was just a boy, but this--Constance, Wolfgang, Frank, and even pop sensation Aloysia--this was what it had been like.  He knew that now.  He'd known for weeks, ever since all his friends had come into town to help him move into the Brooklyn townhouse with his partners.  After almost twenty years of being alone, Antonio had a family again.

Over on the bed, baby Frida's tiny red fingers wrapped around Frank's pinkie; when Aloysia giggled, Mrs. Weber smiled.  Wolfgang had released the crib and taken a step toward Constance and Antonio when Constance suddenly blurted, "I'm pregnant!"

Shock washed over the room like a wave, all heads turning in her direction with expressions ranging from Mrs. Weber's outrage to Frank's muted delight.  Constance, pregnant?  Antonio was suddenly hyper-aware of his arm wrapped around her waist: he released her, sneaking a glance at the baby in Aloysia's arms.  

On the other side of the room, Wolfgang staggered, mumbled, "Constance!" and dropped to the floor in a faint.

"Wolfgang!" Constance shrieked.  She and Antonio were at his side at once, turning him over and discovering that he was still breathing, albeit shallowly.  The room became a blur of motion after that.  He was dimly aware of Mrs. Weber's voice as she stormed out into the hall in search of help, of Aloysia fumbling with the buttons on her bed as she tried to summon a nurse, of the piercing howls of her baby reacting to the sudden panic that surrounded them.  He knelt motionless, not even sure his heart was beating, watching helplessly as Constance's hands fluttered across Wolfgang's chest, hovered over his mouth and nose, frantically smoothed his hair away from his forehead.  He found himself staring listlessly at Wolfgang's face, his stubbly chin, his shapely lower lip, his meticulously-arched brows, willing his eyes to blink open, willing him to grin, hop to his feet, and say something adorable that made Constance's pregnancy seem like an exciting adventure.

But something was wrong.  Antonio should have seen it right away, should have known when they were in bed together the night before and Wolfgang had gasped for air for several minutes after his orgasm, the color drained from his cheeks and sweat beading across his brow.  He shouldn't have been so impatient when Wolfgang had been unable to catch his breath at the top of the stairs.  He should have noticed that he was breathing too loudly when he had dozed off in the waiting room.

Nurses had arrived and were lifting him onto a stretcher before Wolfgang mumbled something, finally opening his eyes again.  Constance lunged forward only to be restrained by a nurse who ordered them to stay where they were or to go back to the waiting room.  Constance and Antonio drifted after the stretcher until it reached the door, willing Wolfgang to meet their eye or give some sign that he was fine, that he had just been surprised at the thought of possibly becoming a parent, but his eyes closed again and his head dropped limply to one side as they bore him away.

Once he was gone, there was nothing to do but wait.  Frank fetched another round of coffee for everyone from the waiting room, though only Mrs. Weber drank hers.  She took a seat on the bench over by the window, and was shortly joined by Constance, who curled up at her mother's side and watched Antonio pace the room with a slack expression.

An hour ticked by before a doctor knocked at the open door and entered with a clipboard, reading off a diagnosis that made Constance burst into tears: Wolfgang had developed a massive bilateral pulmonary embolism.  He was unusually young, she said; it was Mrs. Weber who pointed out that embolisms had killed both of his parents.  Her voice was low and listless.  A breath hissed between Frank's teeth before he said, "The flight out to LA!" and Constance added, "He hasn't left the house in weeks."

Antonio leaned against the wall, unable to catch his breath while the doctor talked.  Clots formed in the legs during long periods of restricted blood flow, she was saying, most commonly in trains or airplanes, any long period of sitting in a cramped position, then sometimes broke away and were carried up to the lungs or brain by the bloodstream.  The embolism had restricted the blood flow from Wolfgang's heart to his lungs for hours, probably lodged there when serious exertion had increased his heart rate following days or weeks of inactivity.  Antonio sank to the floor, covering his face in his hands.  Sex.  It was the first time Wolfgang had come to bed with him since his father's funeral.  Since the cross-country flight.  And then he had dragged him all the way to midtown from Brooklyn in the subway, mentally accusing him of being whiny when Wolfgang had said he was having trouble breathing on the stairs.  The embolism was Antonio's fault.

The doctor was still talking, throwing around words like "occlusion" and "necrosis".  Apparently whatever anticoagulants were supposed to take care of the clot weren't working quickly enough, and Wolfgang's life was in danger.  The corners of her mouth twisted as she said, "The only thing left to try is an embolectomy, but there are risks involved.  We just wanted to speak with the next-of-kin before we took that step."

"Take it," Constance said firmly, dashing the tears away from her eyes.  "What's the alternative, just let him suffocate?  Do it, do the surgery.  You have to save him."  She rose from the bench and came over to kneel at Antonio's side. "Don't you think so?"

He nodded, though he could feel the coffee he had drunk earlier churning around in his stomach and wondered if he was going to be sick right there in front of all of them.

"How much time do we have?" Constance was asking the doctor.  "I'll call his sister.  We're just his partners."

The doctor's expression was so grim Antonio couldn't bear to look at her.  "You can call her," she said, "but based on your permission and the consent form he signed I'm going to get him prepped. Let a nurse know if the sister changes your mind."

Josie, Sophie, and Kaavya Kavalieri arrived shortly after Constance stepped out to call Nannerl.  They gathered around their sister and her baby, cooing and congratulating her as though Wolfgang's life wasn't in danger somewhere else in the building.  To Antonio's surprise, it was Cecilia Weber who extracted herself from the cluster of guests and offered Antonio her hand.  After a pause he took it, nervously letting her help him to his feet.  "Listen, I don't really know you," she said quietly, casting a glance over her shoulder, "but your brother sure has made my Allie comfortable and happy these past few weeks.  And I know my Stanzi loves you.  But... she also loves Wolfgang, and I do know him."

"Mrs. Weber-" Antonio protested, his voice ragged.

She cut him off.  "Wolfgang Mozart is a scamp, and he always has been, but ever since he was a boy, all he's wanted is to give that big heart of his to someone who would take care of him.  That's all he wanted.  And if my little Constance loves him, and if the three of you really are happy together... well, I can keep fighting it and lose my daughter, or I can try to trust her judgement and gain a couple of- of sons."  She patted his shoulder awkwardly, nodding once and crossing her arms.

Antonio looked toward the door, then over the other Weber sisters' heads toward Frank, but no one else was available to rescue him from this conversation.  "Uh- Mrs. Weber-"

"In a way, I always could have guessed that Constance and Wolfgang would be right for each other," she said thoughtfully.  "But the thought of them raising a kid together... I don't know." She shrugged.  "I will say that Wolfgang is one of the best musicians out there."

"Mrs. Weber, I just remembered I need to feed my cat," Antonio said, slipping away from her and returning to the waiting room.  He brought up the feeder app on his phone and instructed it to release Catstance's breakfast, wondering if she was missing her humans right now or if she was enjoying having the house to herself.  He considered texting Frannie to ask her to stop by and check on the cat after school today, but thought better of it.  There was no need to worry the poor kid, especially if the surgery went alright and Wolfgang was back on his feet again before too long.  If things went the other way, though--well, there was no need to involve Frannie Süssmayr in any of it.

Constance was still on the phone with Nannerl when he arrived in the waiting room, her cheeks wet with tears.  She held out her free hand to Antonio, slumping against him when he folded her into a hug.  She signed off then, promising to let Nannerl know as soon as they had news.  Once her phone was tucked into her jacket pocket, she pressed her face to Antonio's chest and whispered, "What are we going to do?"

He didn't know; there was no right answer.  Antonio just tightened his grip on her, wondering if she could tell that his heart was racing.

They were in the waiting room for over an hour, mostly sitting in silence, sometimes joined briefly by Frank or one of Constance's sisters.  Antonio clung to Constance's hand, half-afraid she would disappear too if he let go of her.  The memory of Wolfgang collapsing played over and over in his mind: the sight of his eyes rolling back into his head, the way he had just crumpled where he stood, the sound of his body hitting the linoleum like a puppet whose strings had been cut.  Then he would remember the way Wolfgang had laid across Constance's lap all night and struggled to breathe, a sound Antonio had just interpreted as a particularly raspy snore.  Why hadn't Wolfgang spoken up?  Why hadn't Antonio noticed that something was wrong?

And between the jumbled images of Wolfgang, another thought kept coming back up: Constance was pregnant.  

They had been so careful, hadn't they?  But somewhere along the line someone had messed up.  At least he knew now that she had been distressed all night because she had been thinking about the pain her sister was in and knowing that the same thing could be in store for her, depending on what decision she made.  And what was she going to do?  He was afraid to ask.  They had enough room and enough money between the three of them, and with all the friends and relatives they had in the city it wasn't like they wouldn't be able to find babysitters or helpers if they ever got overwhelmed.  But they were too young, weren't they?  What did any of them know about raising a kid?  And they'd only been together for a couple of months now.  Things had been going well, sure, but their relationship was too new to trust it with a human life.  How would it work if they broke up?  At some point they would need to figure out which one of them had gotten her pregnant, wouldn't they?  What if it was Wolfgang's baby, and it was prone to embolisms too?  What if it was Antonio's, and it had depression?  And once they found out who the father was, would one of them end up being a third wheel after all?

Suddenly, Constance interrupted his thoughts: "If Wolfgang dies, it was my fault."

"What?" Antonio asked, searching her face.  "How?"

"I shouldn't have told him like that.  I shouldn't have just blurted it out when we're already stressed.  I- I can't keep it, Antonio.  Not now, not after this."

He caught his lower lip between his teeth for a moment before asking, "But what if it's his?"

Constance didn't answer, but her grip on his hand tightened.

"He- he won't die.  Not without finishing that song for his dad.  He can't.  He'll get better."

"But what if he doesn't?"

"He will," Antonio insisted, giving her hand a little shake.  "He has to."

Neither of them said anything after that.  Frank came back out and slid into the seat next to Antonio, gently rubbing his brother's back without trying to break the silence.  Antonio closed his eyes, trying to think of something from his good memory bank that would reassure him, or at least distract him, but he couldn't stop remembering the way Wolfgang had lain there gasping for air for so long the night before, one hand on his chest and the other cupping Antonio's ass.  What if that was the last time they ever had sex?  What if Constance found out that Antonio was responsible for getting Wolfgang's blood pressure up in the first place?  He looked down at their joined hands.  Would she blame him if she knew?  She had forgiven him for a lot of things in the time they had known each other, but this might be the final straw.

The sudden renewed pressure of Constance's hand around his was what alerted him to the arrival of the doctor who had been treating Wolfgang.  Constance jumped to her feet, but when Antonio tried to follow suit he discovered that he was too dizzy, that his knees were too weak to support him.  He took a deep breath and waited, trying to steady himself.

At first, the doctor simply nodded her head.  "We got it," she said.  "He should be fine."

Constance let out a strangled noise of relief and sank to the floor.  Antonio dropped down to her side, wrapping his arms around her and hiding his own tears against her shoulder.  He should be fine.  Wolfgang would be fine.  Their family was okay.

 

 

 

 

Wolfgang and Aloysia were both discharged the next evening, Aloysia to a condo that her mother had been anxiously filling with baby supplies, and Wolfgang to the care of his relieved partners.  They hailed a cab, of course, Antonio and Constance taking seats at either side of Wolfgang, clucking over the bruise the IV had left on the back of his hand and the bandage over his heart that protected the scar from his surgery.  As for Wolfgang, these two wounds and the sallow cast to his face were the only indication that he'd ever been sick at all.  He reveled in their attention, kissing their cheeks or shoulders whenever they turned away from him and grinning widely all the way home.  He was like a kid who'd had his tonsils out and was just happy to be allowed to eat nothing but sherbet until the swelling went down.  

Recovery from an embolism wasn't quite as entertaining as recovery from a tonsillectomy.  When he was being discharged from the hospital, they had received strict orders to make sure he took his blood thinners every day and to try to work his way up to a regular exercise routine, taking care not to over-exert him in case any further clots had formed during the surgery.  Embolectomies were a last resort, the doctor had said, with only an eighty percent survival rate.  Wolfgang had been lucky, but Constance and Antonio weren't taking any chances.  They helped him up the steps to the front door, then forced him to rest in the parlor for half an hour before he tackled the stairs that lay between the first floor and his bedroom up on the third.  Antonio took advantage of the break to throw dinner together.  By the time they were willing to let Wolfgang take the first flight of stairs, the food was ready and the three of them ate out of their laps on Antonio's bed.  They saved the second flight of stairs until after dinner; once Wolfgang was in his room Antonio revealed that he had bought him a treadmill and moved it into his studio so Wolfgang could exercise and compose at the same time.

Neither of them could bear to leave his side that night.  The house had been too empty without him, without the distant sounds of his music and his infectious giggle.  When he crawled into bed, Antonio and Constance took their places on either side of him just as they had done in the cab.  Antonio found Wolfgang's hand beneath the sheets and wove their fingers together, kissing his scratchy jaw and his neck before he laid his head on the pillow.  Wolfgang just grinned at him.  "You have no idea how much I want you both right now," he said, mischievous.  

"Soon," Constance said.  "We'll ask at your checkup next week."

Antonio put on a gentle infomercial voice and added, "Ask your doctor if your heart is ready for sexual activity."

"Fidanzato's got jokes!" he giggled, finding Antonio's foot with his and tapping his toes against it.

Constance draped an arm over Wolfgang's chest and prodded Antonio's shoulder.  "He's a funny man!  Give him credit, Wolfi.  Antonioni, do you remember the dumb baby names we came up with that morning after I slept at your old place?  Those were funny."

"Sort of.  Wasn't one going to be Princess Peach?"

"You guys are not naming our baby Princess Peach," Wolfgang interjected.

"So what do you suggest?"

After thinking it over a moment, Wolfgang muttered, "Catgang."

"Or Birdtonio," Antonio said.  He hesitated a moment, then ventured, "So- so we're doing it, then?  Constance... you're keeping the baby?"

"I'd like to.  Is that okay?  If you think it's too soon-"

"No, Constance, we have to keep it," said Wolfgang.  "I mean, no one ever feels ready, do they?  But we- we can do it.  I know we can."

Constance tapped his shoulder again.  "Antonio?"

He closed his eyes, tracing the shape of Wolfgang's thumb with his own.  "If something happens- if we break up-"

Wolfgang started to protest, but Constance interrupted him, saying, "Then we'll do whatever's best for the baby."

Antonio didn't know what to say to that.  The idea of a baby in the house, a little squalling blob like Frida, gave him a weird trembling feeling in his chest.  But Wolfgang was right when he said that the three of them were so good together--the past month since they had moved into the townhouse had been the most satisfying, the happiest of his life.  And he'd already had visions of them as parents, hadn't he?  Hadn't he already imagined Constance smiling at him in the backseat of a taxi when their kid finally fell asleep in her arms?  Hadn't he imagined bundling up little coats and standing on the patio with Constance sipping hot chocolate while Wolfgang and the children played in the snow?  But it had been a dream, a distant fantasy that was doomed to fall apart long before it might have come to fruition.

"Antonio," Wolfgang said gently, "I'm not pressuring you.  I love you.  It's okay if you're not ready.  We have time, I know we do."

"And I love you, too, Antonioni Rigatoni, no matter what we decide."

Antonio heaved a sigh, rolling onto his side and catching Constance's fingers in his free hand.  "Can we talk about it tomorrow?  I think I should talk to Dr. Gassmann first."

"Then we'll come with you!" offered Wolfgang.

"That's a good idea," Constance agreed.  "If she thinks we can do it, then we'll talk it over."

Antonio smiled.  He could just make out their faces in the darkness: both of them were turned to him, each holding one of his hands.  He sighed again, scooting closer to Wolfgang until his lips were against his shoulder.  "I love you too," he murmured, closing his eyes.

Wolfgang snuggled against him with a little sigh of his own, mumbling, "Fidanzato."

"Alright, go to sleep, Wolfgang," said Constance.  "You too, Antonio."

He listened to their breathing for a long time after that, his thoughts racing too quickly for him to find sleep.  A baby, a little Constance or a little Wolfgang.  Or a little version of him!  Maybe it was a better idea than he originally thought.  Between the three of them, they could form a pretty good parenting team: Wolfgang would excel at playtime and lullabies, Constance could read to them and dress them in the sharpest little outfits, and Antonio--well, Antonio could cook meals at least.  He remembered the way Frida's little hand had curled around Frank's finger in the hospital, and suddenly he imagined that it was Constance holding the baby and the baby was theirs.  He imagined a toddler with legs and arms wrapped around one of Antonio's shins, giggling madly while he walked them across the floor.  He imagined the kid crawling into bed with the three of them after waking from a nightmare, cuddling into his arms and falling asleep.  He imagined coming home from work and hearing the thunderous approach of little footsteps, of a high-pitched voice calling him 'Dad'.  By the time Antonio finally drifted off to sleep, his lashes were wet.  If the good memory bank seemed full now, how much more could it hold once they had a child to take care of?

 

 

 

 

When Antonio awoke in the morning, his shoulders were stiff, his palms were clammy, and Wolfgang's hand was cold.  He pressed his forehead to his boyfriend's shoulder, mentally calculating where the nearest extra blanket might be, and whether or not he would be able to fall asleep again if he got up to retrieve it for Wolfgang, when it set in that something was wrong.  He held his breath and listened.  The blare of a car horn in the distance, the shouts of neighborhood children playing in the snow, Catstance's incessant purring from the foot of the bed.  Constance's breathing, the growl of his own stomach... and silence.

Realization took hold all at once, settling over him like a chill; Antonio released Constance's hand and leaped out of the bed, Wolfgang's fist still closed around his other hand.  He backed away, his fingers sliding free of Wolfgang's grip until his boyfriend's arm fell limply onto the empty spot where Antonio had been lying.  He stared for a moment, his arm still outstretched, until his legs went weak and he fell to his knees.  Wolfgang was dead.

Constance had first stirred when Antonio released her hand.  At the sound of him dropping to the floor, she opened her eyes and took in the scene.  Her head had been resting on Wolfgang's chest during the night; when she realized that he wasn't breathing, she let out a shriek that sent Catstance scrambling to the far side of the room.  Antonio watched her cup Wolfgang's face in her hands, futilely begging him to open his eyes, the pitch of her voice changing until her words were completely drowned by awful, guttural sobs.  

Everything was a haze after that.  It was Constance who called the paramedics, who pulled Antonio to his feet, who guided him downstairs to his own room.  It was Constance who called the hospital, who reported in a hollow voice that embolectomies were known to cause further clots, that one out of five people didn't even survive the procedure.  She wrapped her arms around Antonio and held him against her while they carried Wolfgang away in a body bag.  She combed her fingers through his hair and kissed his forehead while she called Dr. Gassmann, who moved a few appointments around and came to the house that afternoon with a casserole.  It was the sight of the dirty dishes from last night's dinner that finally pierced the haze, a stack of three plates in the sink, three forks and three glasses.  The fingerprints on one of them was Wolfgang's; one of them still bore the shape of his lip on the rim, though there was no way to know which was which.  His voice low and unsteady, Antonio sat before Dr. Gassmann and described tearing his hand away from Wolfgang's and realizing that it would be the last time they touched.  He put his dreams of Wolfgang singing lullabies to their children to words before they dissolved like an exhale on a cold winter's day.  Constance held his hand the whole time, only letting go to wipe her eyes and blow her nose.

By the time Dr. Gassmann left, Antonio was afraid that the sound of Constance's tears would stop his own heart before they made it through the end of the day.  He pulled her into an embrace, only realizing that he had been crying too when his wet cheek pressed against hers.  He took a deep breath.  The smell of her floral shampoo was tied to so many of the moments in his good memory bank, but today... if it hadn't been for Constance, there was no doubt in Antonio's mind that he wouldn't have survived a day like this.  He wouldn't have had a reason to.

They sat in the parlor like that for a long time, each listening to the other breathe.  Going upstairs meant facing Wolfgang's empty bedroom, meant facing a night spent without him.  The first night of the rest of their lives without Wolfgang, without the rhythm of his little snore, without his arms flung around them or his cold feet pressed against their legs.  Antonio's stomach gurgled again, but he couldn't bring himself to let go of her.  When he closed his eyes, he could still see the moment that he broke Wolfgang's grip on his hand, his arm falling lifelessly back onto the bed, palm still open, fingers still outstretched.

Constance sat back suddenly, scrubbing her palms across her cheeks and then cupping Antonio's face in both hands, using her thumbs to wipe away his tears.  "We'll see him again," she said, her voice low and raw.  "We'll see him again."  And she took one of Antonio's hands in hers and placed it against her stomach.

Antonio studied her face, puffy and red from hours of unstoppable tears.  He looked down at their hands, remembering the touch of Wolfgang's skin, his cold fist locked around Antonio's as his life slipped away.  But then he cleared his throat, forcibly turning his thoughts back to Constance, to the little life she was carrying inside her.  "Are you sure?"

"That first night in LA," she said, her voice ragged.  "He used a condom he found in the bedside table and didn't tell me it was ten years old until it broke."

Antonio snorted.  "Of course he did," he said, unsure whether he wanted to cry or laugh.  

"He said he didn't know they had expiration dates."

"And he probably didn't," said Antonio.  "This is the same guy who didn't know how to use a can opener until last week."

That made Constance smile, but it fell away at once and she said, "Antonio, we have to tell everybody."

Any levity was gone after that.  They took turns making the calls, holding each other and taking over whenever one person couldn't go on.  Nannerl, Frank and Aloysia, Lorenzo and Stephanie, Sophie and Kaavya Kavalieri, Josie, Mrs. Weber, Frannie Süssmayr, the same conversation over and over, the same shock, the same despair every time.  Every one was a life Wolfgang had touched.  And then there were those who would stand before the nightly news in shock, #RIPWolfgangMozart finally replacing #toomanynotes in twitter's trending topics.  He could imagine the scene in apartments across the city: Rosenberg, Ziggy, Joe, Margie, Jean-Paul, so many stricken faces, people who had wronged him, people who had moved on, people who only knew him professionally, all of them realizing that the world would never quite be the same.

They stayed in Constance's room that night, the only room the three of them had never used since her bed was so narrow.  He laid there with his face buried in her hair, her shoulders against his chest, his arms around her waist, both their hands on her stomach, fingers intertwined.  Antonio couldn't stop his thoughts enough to relax; from the cadence of her breathing, he could tell Constance was awake too.  His personal sense of loss was keen and sharp as he tried not to imagine coming home to a silent house, dust gathering in the music room upstairs, sitting through a movie without hearing Wolfgang's ridiculous giggle, without him reaching for Antonio's hand or laying his head on his shoulder with that familiar contented sigh.  But beyond that, he was thinking of the boy he had been, of Frannie Süssmayr, of all the people to whom Wolfgang Mozart was something more, something greater than a silly little man with large brown eyes and an enormous heart.  He spread his fingers over Constance's stomach and pulled her tighter as a thought struck him: they would see him again, yes, but not just in their child.  Wolfgang was a part of every kiss he and Constance exchanged, every hug Frank had given him since they found each other again at the concert, even the awkward shoulder pat from Mrs. Weber when she called Antonio her son.  They had a roof over their heads because of him, but he had also given them a home.  He had given Antonio a family.

Antonio kissed Constance's neck and then her shoulder, smiling against her golden waves of hair.  She turned her head, eyes shining with unshed tears, and whispered, "What is it, Antonioni?"

"You were right," Antonio said.  He lifted his hand from her stomach and cupped her cheek.  "We'll see him again."

And after that, he was finally able to sleep.


	20. Chapter 20

"You know what you need?  A pool," said Stephanie, flipping onto her stomach so her front and back would tan evenly.

Lorenzo leaned over and trailed his fingers up her spine with his lazy smile.  "Nah," he joked, "when they get hot they just go to the next block and jump in Prospect Park Lake."

"All the time," Antonio said dryly.

"Or you can swim laps in that giant bathtub upstairs."

Stephanie craned her neck toward Lorenzo and said, "Babe, can you scoot back?  You're blocking the light."

He obeyed only after he had met Antonio's gaze and rolled his eyes good-naturedly.

Antonio sat back too, though with the August sun directly overheard there was little chance of him getting in the way of Stephanie's tan.  She was stretched out on a towel directly on the patio, while Antonio was in a chair at the table, looking out over the back yard. Lorenzo was closer, sitting cross-legged at Stephanie's side and toying with her half-used bottle of sunscreen.  They had elected to plop down onto the patio as soon as they had arrived, leaving their overnight bags in the middle of the parlor: apparently Stephanie had taken the train in from Philly wearing nothing but her bikini and a maxi dress.  As she put it, Antonio and Constance were her only friends who actually had a back yard, and she wasn't going to waste any time that weekend in taking advantage of it.

Down in the yard, Josie was doing the same thing, laying out on the old quilt Antonio had brought down for their makeshift picnic while her mother and little sister bustled around the grill nearby.  Catstance was winding around Cecilia's ankles as she tutted over the quality of the burgers; Sophie was stealing grapes from the fruit salad her girlfriend Kaavya was assembling whenever she turned her back.  Antonio bit back a smile when Kaavya finally caught her and lobbed a strawberry at her as punishment, earning a shriek and a cry of, "Kaavi, this is my new dress!"  Cecilia watched the girls too with that look Antonio now knew was pride, pride in her daughters--and in their families.  He had been on the receiving end of that look himself a few times, though it still made him nervous.

A moment later Frank emerged from the bushes at the back of the lot with a triumphant grin on his face and a wild rose in each hand.  He made his way over to the bench where Aloysia was sitting with Frida and tucked one of the flowers behind her ear with a flourish.  With her long, dark hair and large eyes the addition of a rose made her look like a flamenco dancer on her day off.  She grinned at him and readjusted it to better accentuate her face.  Antonio had gotten used to the presence of pop sensation Aloysia in his family a lot more easily than he would have guessed before he met her.  That icy, composed creature he had seen in red carpet footage and music videos over the years was just a persona, a coping mechanism for a shy woman with a wicked sense of humor.  He could see why Frank liked her so much, what Frank had always seen even before they had met.  The two of them brought out the best in each other, musically as well as personally.  They hadn't made an official announcement yet, but Aloysia had already asked Frank to be her guitarist on the tour she was planning for next year: the Syncopated Tart tour.  Frank's idea.

His brother stooped before the bench and offered Frida the other rose, watching those chubby little hands reach out for the bloom with the same warm expression that was always lingering in his eyes nowadays.  Frida waved the flower around and babbled at it while Aloysia pulled Frank into a kiss.  When they broke apart he looked up at the patio, caught Antonio's eye, and winked at him.  Antonio shook his head fondly, resting his chin in his hand.  He'd had no idea his brother was such a sap before Frida was born.  Frank held up one finger and went to the back of the yard again, the overgrown bushes eventually blocking him from view.

"Antonio, honey, what kind of cheese do you want on your burger?" Cecilia called.

He sat up straight at the sound of her voice as he always did, though Constance's mom hadn't been a threat to him in a long, long time.  In fact, that day she had come to his office had been exactly a year ago now.  "Uh, swiss, I guess," he answered vaguely, hoping his voice would carry through the hot summer air without him having to match her volume.

"We've only got cheddar and jack."

"Cheddar, then."

Frank reemerged from the back of the yard and took the stairs up to the patio two at a time, stepping gingerly over Stephanie's legs.

"What are you-?" Antonio started to ask, but before he could finish the question his brother brought out a fistful of roses from behind his back.  He slid one behind each of Antonio's ears, one into his shirt pocket, and then began looping the rest through the elastic that was holding back his hair.  "Frank..."

"Just want you to look nice on your birthday," he teased, popping the last rose behind his own ear and dropping to a seat at the table.

Lorenzo snickered, leaning back on his hands and stretching his legs out in front of him.  "You've gotten really weird, Frank."

"It's cute!" objected Stephanie without lifting her head.  "Papa Francesco."

Frank just grinned.  "Antonio's next," he said with a waggle of his eyebrows.  "How long now?"

"Another month, maybe six weeks." Antonio craned his neck up to the open window on the third floor, shading his eyes against the glow of the sun until he saw Constance leaning on the sill, watching them all with a dreamy expression and her head in her hands.

She saw Antonio looking and smiled, stretching out an arm and crooking a finger. "Come up, Antonioni!  I have to show you something!" 

The looks on his friends' faces changed suddenly.  Lorenzo and Frank glanced knowingly at each other, and Stephanie even said, "Oooh!" like the studio audience in a saucy sitcom.

"Shut up," Antonio grinned, taking the roses out from behind his ears and dropping them in Lorenzo's lap before he went inside.  He stepped over Lorenzo and Stephanie's luggage on the first floor, then the hospital bag he and Constance had packed and were keeping on the landing of the second, just in case the baby came early.  She was waiting on the top floor, where golden rays of sunlight were beating down through the glass roof, shining in her hair and making her look like the angel at the top of a Christmas tree.

She pushed herself slowly off the window seat, one hand at the small of her back as she found her balance.  The breeze from the open window caught the loose layers of her white dress as it bore up the sounds of their friends and family out in the yard.  Antonio couldn't resist gathering her into his arms, holding her as close as he could with the baby between them.

She tugged at his ponytail.  "This is cute," she said, plucking out one of the roses and sniffing it.

Antonio dropped to his knees and kissed her belly.  "Frank," he said.  It was explanation enough.  "What did you want to show me?"

"I finished the wall."

The wall!  Antonio rose to his feet right away, turning around to face the far wall where Wolfgang's mattress used to be.  The breeze from outside filtered into the room again, catching the glistening corners of hundreds of photographs.  Antonio let out a breath, finding Constance's hand and squeezing it before he moved closer.  

Wolfgang.  Every photo held a little piece of him.  Dozens of selfies from social media, press shots with various members of the Divine Libertines, all the photos Constance had taken in their time together, and even that old newspaper clipping of the two of them as kids at the Padova Boys' Home.  There were enough photos to cover the whole wall, surrounding the waiting crib with images of him, of them, of their family.

"Constance..." he breathed.

She slipped her arms around his waist, the baby pressed against his back and her forehead between his shoulders.  "Happy birthday, Antonioni," she said, her voice husky.

He took one of her arms and drew her around into a proper embrace, kissing her temple before he said, "Constance... I could stand here and look at it for hours.  It's perfect, it's- it's exactly him.  I love it.  I love you."

"Well, it's more of a gift for all of us," she said, touching her belly.  "But there is something else."

"I told you, you don't have to give me-"

"Marry me," she blurted.

Antonio's grip tightened, his heartbeat stuttering.  "What?"

"I want you to marry me."

"Are- what?  Constance, are you sure?  You really want... me?"

"Am I sure?" she laughed, pushing free of his arms and catching his face in her hands.  "God, Antonio!  Am I sure?  I want- I want children with your eyes, I want your smartass jokes, I want your cooking and your hugs and your lips.  The way you hum while you work even when you don't realize you're doing it, that look on your face when you're inside me, even the way you get embarrassed in public.  I want my Italian prince husband, coming home from that fancy Wall Street job every day, waking up long enough to put your arms around me when I get into bed after a long shift."

Antonio couldn't hold her gaze; his cheeks were getting too hot.  He peeled her hands away from his face, looking over her shoulder at the countless images of Wolfgang: smiling, performing, kissing cheeks, composing.  His eyes fell on an image from the red carpet of Joey Lange's movie.  Constance in her stunning little dress, Antonio in that tailored suit, and Wolfgang between them, his jacket glittering like a disco ball, his arms around both their waists and that enormous grin on his face.  'My girlfriend, Constance Weber,' he had said, 'and my boyfriend, Antonio Salieri.'  Antonio couldn't help but smile at the memory of the journalists' stunned faces, probably not too different from the look on his own.  As comfortable as Wolfgang looked in that image, it was hard not to think that he belonged in that spot between them.  That he should still be there.

"Antonio?"

But he could hear Dr. Gassmann's voice in his mind, her gaze calm, clear, free of judgement: 'What did Wolfgang want for you?  What did he want for Constance?  If he could see you right now, how would he feel?'

How would he feel?  Well, how did Wolfgang Mozart always feel?

"He loved us," Antonio whispered.

Constance laced his fingers through his, her brows drawing together.  "You don't have to answer now," she murmured.  "You don't have to answer ever.  Nothing has to change, you know that, right?  I- you're my Italian prince no matter what, even if we never sign any papers.  The things I said, they're still us."

But he hadn't taken his gaze away from the photo, from the blob of ink that had preserved Wolfgang's cheeky smile.  Antonio shook his head.  "No," he said faintly.

Constance took a step back.  "No?"

"No- I mean, no, I want it to change.  I want- yes.  Yes, I want you, I've wanted to be with you since- since you took one look at me that night at the bar and brought me a wine list."

She laughed again, his favorite melody.  "You were the cutest grump I'd ever seen, trying to drink that cocktail like you knew what the hell you'd ordered."

"So let's do it.  Let's- let's sign the papers, buy the rings, change our names, whatever we have to do."

She flung her arms around his neck and kissed the spot right below his ear.  "The first thing we have to do," she said, "is tell everybody!"

"How convenient that everybody happens to be right outside that window," Antonio pointed out.

"Is it convenient?  I hadn't realized."

But the sparkle in her eyes betrayed her.  "Constance!" he chided. "You already told them you were going to ask me!"

"Shh!  No I didn't!" she lied, dragging him over to the window seat by one hand.

When their faces appeared in the upstairs window, Cecilia dropped the tongs onto the grill and called, "Well?  Do we pop the champagne or not?"

Antonio huffed, eliciting a giggle from Constance.  She shot him that wide-eyed look and whispered, "Must be mother's intuition!"

"Must be daughter's big mouth," he grumbled.

One of her hands trailed up his knee.  "You love my big mouth."

"Well?" Cecilia repeated.

Antonio leaned over the sill, scanning the upturned faces: Cecilia, Josie, Sophie, Kaavya, Aloysia, Stephanie, Lorenzo, his brother Frank... only little Frida wasn't paying attention, happily gnawing on the rose Frank had given her while Catstance sniffed at the fallen petals.  The word came to him again, a word he had used more and more over these past few months: his family.  He wrapped his arm around Constance's waist and kissed her cheek before looking back down at Cecilia.  His mother-in-law.  He took a deep breath.  "Pop the champagne!"

A cheer rose up from the group, Stephanie even leaping to her feet and punching the air while Frank pulled Lorenzo into a hug.  Antonio scoffed, leaning back inside just as Cecilia shouted, "Then come down here and get your burger!"

But Constance seemed to have other ideas.  She pushed him back against the wall and climbed clumsily into his lap, tugging the elastic out of his hair.  A handful of crumpled rose petals fell free, drifting to the window seat and the floor.  The breeze even carried a few to the far wall over by the crib, over by the countless images of Wolfgang.  Winding her arms around his neck, Constance caught his lips in a slow, comfortable kiss.  Her tongue met his; one of her hands trailed down his chest, the other up through his long hair.

As Constance lifted his shirt over his head and began stringing a line of kisses from his neck down to his heart, Antonio thought back to the day they had met.  Joe's birthday party, a year and a half ago, the day Lorenzo and Stephanie had finally gotten together.  The loneliest day of his life.  She had been poised, charming, and always beautiful, laughing sweetly at him as he fumbled with his unfamiliar drink.  And what if he hadn't let Rosenberg drag him to the bar that night?  What if he had never met Constance, never fallen in love, never been taken to the Divine Libertines concert?  Frank, Wolfgang--gentle, loving Wolfgang--even being reunited with Lorenzo and befriending Stephanie... it had all started there, all started with an overpriced cocktail and a string of bad decisions.  It had ended with this house, this birthday weekend, these friends.

Antonio combed his fingers through Constance's hair and guided her back up into another deep kiss.  His fiancée.  Their baby.  Their family.

He never could have known that that night would turn out like this.


End file.
